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On April 14th I'll debut my latest performance piece at Detroit's Music Hall. "The Saranay Motel" is both a performance piece and a feature length film. In December 2005, I spent two days in a flea-bag hotel on Detroit's notorious Woodward Avenue with three digital video cameras, three actors, a Range Rover and a grinding wheel. Drawing inspiration from this experience, in late June of 2006 I "retired" to Hilton Head Island South Carolina in order to hammer out a screenplay and a plan.

Two weeks later with the assistance of Gary Wasserman, I drew together a loose network of stooges, flunkies, aspirant actors, graphic designers, yes-men, filmmakers and itinerant musicians. Over the course of four sun-baked days and five alcohol soaked nights (I was the designated driver), we managed to shoot over twenty hours of digital video footage. During this same four day period, my new band "The Venomous Sons of Jonah" cut two tracks with Timothy Day at Detroit's' Sonic Orchard Studios, Cluck Old Hen - a traditional clawhammer banjo piece - and Can't Nobody Flow. The former track takes this hyper traditional clawhammer sound and fuses it with hip-hop rhymes, beats and late 80's style production.

The performance piece takes this still in progress film and remixes it with multi-screen projection, animation, typography, spoken word poetry, robotic drums and an acoustic ensemble band.

OIn early Michigan mornings, coming from the edge of the water is the faint sound of handclaps and finger snaps. With polyester and gold chains and booty decoys, he draws all the pretty kids out onto the dance floor with bellowing hissing honking peanut buttery goodness. This cat is freaky y'all. The Goose Commander - Your girlfriend likes his records better than yours.

Because of Leadbitter's big shows, an otherwise trendy Friday night in Detroit nostalgically evokes a dramatic scene from German expressionist art. The room glows by a seedy red light rather than a strobe, and the ridiculous revolving stage remains motionless. When Causing a Scene is on stage, men don't leer and women aren't self-obsessed. The mood is intensely androgynous, but far from asexual. For about 45 minutes, there's a lot of flesh and feathers in the room. And it's claustrophobic, cabaret-style. Even nonsmokers buy a pack

Official Site:

http://www.causingascene.com/

Pluck was formed by violinist Adrian Garratt in 2002 when he got together with violist Jon Regan and cellist Sian I. All three performers are trained classical musicians. Although they met in conventional music circles, they share a desire to do more that just play the instruments that they’ve spent so long learning and perfecting. As pluck, taking their classical skills into cabaret, comedy, and theatre with some incredible results pluck have perfoPluck was formed by violinist Adrian Garratt in 2002 when he got together with violist Jon Regan and cellist Sian I. All three performers are trained classical musicians. Although they met in conventional music circles, they share a desire to do more that just play the instruments that they’ve spent so long learning and perfecting. As pluck, taking their classical skills into cabaret, comedy, and theatre with some incredible results pluck have performed at four Edinburgh Fringe Festivals (2002-2005).rmed at four Edinburgh Fringe Festivals (2002-2005).

Official Site:

http://www.pluck.me.uk/

A Collective of London band artists who explore a wide range of artistic medium and who have collaborated with Scanner and Beck as well as contemporary classical composer Steve Reich and the London Symphony Orchestra.

Official Site:

http://www.dfuse.com/

“Fusing aerial acrobatics and gymnastics with edgy pointe work best described as “extreme ballet,” Los Angeles-based artistic director/choreographer Josie Walsh creates mini-Vegas-like extravaganzas with her six-year-old Myo Dance Company. A former Joffrey Ballet and Zurich Ballet dancer, Walsh has an additional weapon in her creative arsenal: Husband Paul Rivera fronts an industrial rock band, Kyo, grinding out guitar licks perched on a pair of stilts. This spring in Hollywood, her 20-member troupe performs The Garden of Reason, a “non-linear journey through the mid.” Walsh, who also teaches and is choreographing Tinker Bell for Disney, says, “We’re dance-based but use circus arts to enhance choreographic opportunities-and to defy gravity.”

Official Site:

http://www.myodance.com/

She started performing visuals as part of audiovisual improvisational band called DADATA in 2001 and after the dissolution of the group she continued as SOLU. She has collaborated with many experimental musicians including Heidi Mortenson and Dj Rupture. With Mortenson she opened Transmediale festival in Berlin 2004 and performed at Zagreb Biennale of Music, Cimatics-festival in Brussels and Museum of Contemporary Art in Helsinki (2003). She has also performed at various other festivals including SONIC ACTS in Amsterdam, SONAR festival in Barcelona, AVIT in Birmingham, MAPPING in Geneve and TRANSIT_MX in Mexico City.

Her experimental music videos have been widely exhibited in festivals around the world: Xfest, Impact, Sonar, etc. Her style ranges from minimal abstractions and strongly processed material to multilayered ambiental landscapes. She processes her visual material with MAX/MSP/JITTER and other programmes like Isadora.

In 2006 she published her thesis on LIVE CINEMA language and elements, (Medialaboratory, Helsinki) which gathers her experience on realtime visuals. Her latest workshop titled ”Audiovisual Realtime Creation” took place in Spain, Germany, Belgium, Finland and Mexico.

Official Site:

http://www.solu.org/