Meet the Artist: Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa
We’re thrilled to be working with the remarkable Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa on Privilege@Home. She talks with Susan McKenzie.
Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa in concert Photo credit: SD Holman
Let’s talk Beethoven.
I’m known as a contemporary music pianist. But what most people don't know is that Beethoven is my favourite composer. And the Waldstein is a piece I’ve lived with for quite a long time - I performed it for my graduating recital for my Bachelors degree, and I've been wanting to come back to it for many, many years. A perfect opportunity!
“The Waldstein” is its’ English nickname but its’ German nickname is Sonnengrüß, which translates to Sun Greeting or Greeting the Sun. Works like this are usually performed in a dark concert hall with artificial lighting. I love the fact that it is the music Jennifer has chosen for an outdoor performance – it’s lovely to get Beethoven out to greet the sun.
How did you get involved?
When Jennifer asked composer Stefan Smulovitz if he knew any pianists who’d be interested in playing Beethoven on the back of a pickup truck, he said “I have just the pianist for you!” And I was so happy to get the call! I thought, if I’d heard about this and anyone else had been playing, I’d have been distraught, because “that's my gig!”.
Photo: screenshot from Darryl Ahye video.
How did you and Jennifer address musical interpretation?
Jennifer was inspired by Alberto Sanna, who believes he may have found the solution to the puzzle of Beethoven's rather cryptic metronome marks. Beethoven is probably the first major composer to really use the metronome, which was invented towards the end of his lifetime. People are baffled by his use of metronome marks, which are crazy fast, really impossible to play at those speeds. It has been assumed that the metronome mark indicates the speed of an quarter note. Perhaps, instead, it means the speed of an eighth note. So, when I listened to the performance links Jennifer sent me my first reaction was “Holy God, that’s slow!” And then “Well, at least the runs will be easier!” As classical musicians, we do what’s called “slow practice” all the time. But in really treating that slower tempo as the actual performance tempo, I found things in this piece that I had not heard at all before. This discovery of what happens with this theory of the slower metronome mark at the eighth note was just fascinating for me and I'm really looking forward to spending more time with that.
I came in for the last rehearsal, one day, for the dancers to hear it with a live piano as opposed to a recording. Then we took it out on the road. Literally out on the road! The symbiosis between piano and dancer developed with each stop on our way. And the dance has to be different every time, because each stop adapted to a different environment. It was interesting to me to be learning to respond to the dancer and the changes the dancer needed to make at the time. And, I think, lovely for the dancers to have an instance where the music is responsive to them, not simply a set tempo they need to adapt to.
How does your playing respond to the dancers?
It’s much like playing chamber music, except that I don’t hear my partner(s) – I see my partner is doing. Of course, I watch the speed of my dance partner. And just like chamber music, the signals are often not even really audible or visual. It doesn’t happen at the beginning of the run, it develops as you perform a number of times. Things like finding that my tempo means they can't get the momentum on a movement or seem to need more time on a specific passage. Actually, the reaction often might happen in the next performance. I'll see something in a particular performance – say I'll finish the lick before they finish the lick for example. I'll think, okay, next time I'll try giving them a little bit more time.
Let's talk about the instrument.
We had quite a discussion about what piano would go on the back of the pickup truck. We wound up choosing a spinet sized piano that would have less wind resistance driving around, and that I could see over top of, so there wouldn't be the barrier of a big piano between me and the dancer or me and the audience.
After Privilege @ Home 2021, that piano became part of a performance for the Queer Arts Festival at Mountain View Cemetery called Piano Burning, an interpretation of the iconic Fluxus piece by Annea Lockwood. In the piece, you put a twist of paper inside the piano, you light it on fire, and you play whatever you like for as long as pleases you.
In this twist, Steve Holman, the Queer Arts Festival Artistic Director reached out to a number of Indigenous collaborators. They introduced the Indigenous protocols and the work transformed into something completely different from anything that I’d ever thought. In the European tradition we burn things in effigy. In other words, we tend to burn the things that we despise. But in Indigenous protocols, items are burnt to send them to the ancestors – so you burn what you value and what you cherish in order to share them with those who have gone ahead of us. So this was an opportunity to send music to the ancestors. MascallDance dance artist Eowynn Enquist joined us - and we danced at the four corners of the site - kind of setting it up like a spell, dancing east, south, west, north. Then we lit the piano on fire. It was phenomenally spiritual in a way that I had not anticipated.
Queer Arts Festival Piano Burning curated by SD Holman and Margo Kane, from the original FLUXUS work by Annea Lockwood. Photo credit: Chris Randle
The original composer, Annea Lockwood wasn't able to be there. We sent her the videos, and she said that she was just so moved. And all that is a long way of saying that we don't have the same piano. It’s going to be a new instrument.
What’s your feeling about the old pianos set up, painted and left for people to play in public places?
To put a piano outdoors subject to the elements is its’ demise, yes. But the world has changed for pianos. They used to be the way people had music - the stereos of the home. Everyone had one, played it, gathered around it to sing. 60’s and 70’s families, pianos were standard along with piano lessons, love it or hate it,just part of life. Now you literally you cannot give a piano away anymore, let alone try to sell it. When Pianos On The Streets puts them out on the streets, to me it means they get played a while before perishing, while so many other pianos are just unloved, unneeded, silenced.
What’s it like working on this project?
You know the most inspiring thing about working with Jennifer Mascall on this was to actually see this dance vocabulary that was developed with a direct 1-to-1 correlation with the notes that I was playing. I find the whole concept really fascinating, especially the different interpretations of the dancers - in this case Ralph Escamillan and Erika Mitsuhashi.I'm so happy to be a part of seeing this project come to light and really excited to see where it goes after this. Because, of course, playing it on the streets with the pickup truck is only one stage of the project and there's more to come.
And I love the story - how back in the 1970’s, Jennifer had come up with this idea of having a developing a vocabulary relating to specific notes and Beethoven and tried it but couldn't find any dancers who could do it. Then recently MascallDance was working with archivist Abigail Sebaly and while going through old boxes, she came across this project and got really excited about it. Jennifer started thinking…hmmm well, there's this dancer who could do it, or then there's this dancer who could do it, and brought this idea that had been shelved decades ago, to light. That feels like such a gift. Often, when an artist has an idea that's way ahead of its time, they don't get to see it develop. Either they die first or, you know, 20 or 30 years later, someone else comes out doing that idea that the time has come for. Having been so ahead of her time with this idea, it’s so great that Jennifer is the one to actually do it, as opposed to seeing someone else come up with this idea that they think is a new idea.
Tell us your after performance go-to!
I drink. Red wine sometimes. Mostly I like a lovely, gentle, honeyed whisky, straight up. Suntory Toki is my favourite, a nod to my Japanese heritage.
Photo credit: SD Holman
For more about Rachel’s doings, check out her website!