Live Musical Premiere!
Tickets are available HERE: https://form.jotform.com/240734892291058
Ticket sales from the musical performance will support the artists involved in this project. The suggested donation is $10 and includes a glass of beer, wine, or bubbly water.
About the May 4 performance:
Composer Jessi (George) Harvey will conduct a three-suite musical score inspired by the mating rituals of the Japanese Rhinoceros Beetle. Scarabic Serenades is a research-based performance of modern/contemporary choreography accompanied by chamber sextet (b-flat clarinet, bass clarinet, alto sax, tenor sax, marimba, and assorted percussion). The chamber sextet is comprised of student musicians from the University of Montana.
About the project:
Scarabic Serenades is a music & dance collaboration between Julynn Wildman and Jessi Harvey exploring the sexual selection, behavior, evolution & genetics of the Japanese Rhinoceros Beetle (Trypoxylus dichotomus).
In 2022, Open AIR Montana Artists-in-Residences Julynn Wildman (choreographer) and Jessi Harvey (composer) spent six weeks immersed in the Emlen Evolutionary Biology Lab at the University of Montana. Their artistic practices flourished with the proximity to live beetles, experimental setups, and experts in the field.
During the 2022 residency, they focused on independent projects, Jessi using elements of rhino beetle mating songs for compositional inspiration and Julynn examining patterns and potentials of arthropod movement and fabricating wearable cardboard beetle armor. Their shared interest in research-based art and multimedia performances led to conversations about a larger-scale collaboration.
Scarabic Serenades will be a 20-minute suite of original dance and music inspired and informed by research of the Emlen Lab. Performed by UM students at the Missoula Butterfly House & Insectarium, this documentary reaches across disciplines with equal parts substance and whimsy, fact and fantasticality, to engage a wide audience within and beyond the arts and science communities. The documentary will be filmed at the Missoula Butterfly House & Insectarium and will be recorded professionally and available online.
More information is available at https://emlenartistcollab.com/
Facebook Event: Click HERE
About the Artists:
Jessi, also known as George, Harvey is a Montana-born freelance composer and teacher; gardener and reader; thinker, and walker. Works are based in science and nature, integrating social curiosity, humor, and a love of knowledge; described by Seattle Mag as “full of surprises and consistently attention holding” and by commissioner Julia Lougheed as “diving into the absurd corners of the human condition-the moments where you have to laugh so you don’t cry”.
Jessi’s work, by the nature of our conversation, won first place at the 2020 Darkwater Womxn in Music Festival and proposal, fish dance, was an honorable mention for the 2020 Splinter Tongue Call for Proposals. Jessi has worked with Opera Elect, the Art Song Collaborative Project, Strange Interlude, the Onomatopoeia Trio, Karin Steven’s Dance, Julia Lougheed, Olivia Valenza, the Live Music Project and others. One of their favorite projects was the organization of THINGS THAT BREAK, a collaboration with three other women artists, all creating works based on the theme of breaking which was awarded the 4Culture Tech Specific Grant. They have had work featured at the Music by Women Festival (2021, 2019), Darkwater Womxn in Music Festival (2021), and New Music Gathering (2020, 2021). Jessi was a selected composer at Unheard//of Ensemble’s Collaborative Composition Initiative (2021), Laboratoire de musique contemporaine de Montréal (2019), and the Waterloo Contemporary Music Sessions (2018). They were an artist-in-residence at the Rensing Center (2021), Open AIR (2022), and the Denver Botanic Garden's Landline Residency (2022).
Recent projects include Diabelli Recomposed, 50 new variations by women composers from 22 different countries, initiated by musicologist, Claudia Bigos, and The Periodic Table, a work based on Primo Levi’s book by the same name premiered by Charles Abramovic. Outside of composition, Jessi is an avid cook, particularly of potatoes and chilies, constant learner, and watcher of the wildlife in their backyard.
Julynn Wildman is a dancer, choreographer, and teaching artist based in Helena, MT. She grew up in Colorado, splitting her time between the Western Slope and the Denver Metropolitan area. This stoked a lifelong pursuit in the complements and contrast of natural sciences and human cultural vibrance.
Julynn graduated summa cum laude from Bard College at Simon’s Rock in 2013 with a BA in Cross-Cultural Relations and Dance. She pursued coursework in Interdisciplinary Art and Media at Columbia College Chicago before relocating to Helena for a tenure with AmeriCorps, serving at ExplorationWorks! Science Center.
Julynn’s choreography has been featured in student showcases and professional productions alike. She was a contributing choreographer for Cohesion Dance Project’s Resonance ~ an evening of Art Inspiring Art (2018-2020) and, in 2018, presented Death of Others, an original community-based performance exploring grief and empathy. In 2020, Julynn received a fellowship through Intrepid Credit Union and the Holter Museum of Art to create Body in Motion, a dance film and immersive installation exploring evolutionary biology and comparative anatomy.
As a performer, Julynn has danced on many stages and sites throughout Montana, notably as a soloist in Cohesion Dance Project’s Nutcracker on the Rocks (2013-2019) and Resonance ~ an evening of art inspiring art (2018-2020) and as a guest performer in What’s Going On (Vincent Thomas Dance, 2017), Cave (Amber Moon Peterson, 2017), and Beyond Words, the body as narrator (Jennifer Glaws, 2022).
Julynn’s teaching practice is vital to her creativity. She is a Montana Teacher Leader in the Arts through the Montana Arts Council and the Montana Office of Public Instruction. She has taught art, dance, and creative movement in schools, residential living facilities, group homes, dance studios, and non-profit arts organizations. Her span of students includes early childhood, adolescents, adults, geriatrics, and individuals with special needs and physical or developmental disabilities.
Cancellation: If you are registered and cannot attend the performance, please let us know at program@openairmt.org so we can open the spot for another audience member.
Questions? Email program@openairmt.org