About Decasia
“Decasia” was originally conceived of as a live environmental multimedia performance with a full size orchestra. The Europaischer Musikmonat (European Music Month) commissioned Michael Gordon to write a symphony that would be performed by the 55-piece basel sinfonietta, and staged by Ridge Theater. The film was created as part of this production. A three story scaffolding structure was built in the shape of a large triangle. The orchestra members were positioned on the various levels, with the conductor standing on a raised podium in the center. Draping the three walls were large pieces of scrim, on which the film and slides were projected from the opposite corners. Surrounding the conductor on the floor was the audience, who looked up through the projections to see the musicians illuminated from behind the scrim.
The premiere performances took place on November 4 and 5, 2001 in Basel, Switzerland. The CD of Decasia (Cantaloupe Music) was made from live recordings of these performances. Bill Morrison re-edited his film to correspond to this recording, which became the soundtrack of the film.
Once the music and images were set on film, “Decasia” reached an audience that was almost unprecedented for a work of experimental cinema and new classical music. Two months after the Basel performances, "Decasia" premiered as a 35mm print at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival, and quickly developed an ardent cult following. In December 2002 it premiered on the Sundance Channel, and Lawrence Weschler wrote a feature about the film for the New York Times Magazine in which he described watching “Decasia” for the first time: “I found myself completely absorbed, transfixed, dumbstruck, a pillow of air lodged in my stilled open mouth, which I don’t think I thereupon managed to close for the next seventy minutes." J. Hoberman of the Village Voice listed it as one of his ten favorite films of 2003, calling it “that rare thing: a movie with avant-garde and universal appeal, (inspiring) trembling and gratitude.” The film ultimately became the subject of five more New York Times articles, in which it was described as “a cult classic” (2/7/04), and “a landmark opus” (10/15/05). David Patrick Stearns of the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote: “If a great, innovative film has been made in the last few years, this is it." (3/13/05)
The DVD was released through Plexifilm, after a two year run on the Sundance Channel. Overseas the BFI picked up the DVD distribution and a theatrical release of the film the UK, where it premiered with a run at the Tate Modern. But nothing would approximate the sheer power of the live environmental performance. “Decasia Live” was remounted in the “surround format” again at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn, NY, September 9-12, 2004.
Music critic Alex Ross described the 2004 St. Ann’s performances in the New Yorker:
“The darkest, grandest noise of the musical season so far—the fanfare to an angry American autumn—was Michael Gordon’s film symphony “Decasia,” as played by fifty-five furiously committed students from the Manhattan School of Music, at St. Ann’s Warehouse, in Brooklyn. The performance took place back in September, but the experience is still burned in my mind…Gordon’s score weds the hypnotic aura of minimalism to the detuned snarl of highbrow punk. It packs a punch on CD, but it needs a live performance to unveil all its power…Even as “Decasia” celebrates raw sound, it summons an atmosphere of dread. Too many of its images resemble Cold War footage of structures vaporizing in nuclear tests. Why, then, are you left with a visceral thrill? Perhaps it’s the joy of surviving what looks and sounds like the end of the world.”
“Decasia Live at Angel Orensanz” will mark just the third time in five years audiences will have the opportunity to experience this work as it was originally conceived by its makers