FIZZY FRAGMENTS
In 2018 Galen conceptualized a condensed creative process with the members of Jiten Daiko. Five members had 4 - 8 hrs each to create and teach a new composition from scratch. In this short period of time, composers and performers practiced paying attention to impulses and committing to strong choices. At the performance, Galen facilitated an “artistic literacy” experience for the audience, asking guiding questions and offering prompts before each piece that helped the audience to look and listen more deeply, and to make meaning from what they were experiencing.
AOI YAMAGUCHI
Collaboration with Aoi Yamaguchi, large scale calligraphist. Performance at Asian Art Museum to celebrate the museums 50th anniversary, and then again at Ikebana International’s annual show to celebrate the 90th anniversary of Teshigahara, the innovator of sogetsu, an avant-garde school within ikebana.
ONG DANCE COMPANY
Collaboration with OngDance Company and Hei Gu Chinese Percussion Ensemble that premiered at the Ethnic Dance Festival in July 2018. This performance brought together Korean dancers and drummers, Japanese taiko drummers, and Chinese dancers and drummers in order to create a single spectacular performance that emphasized the common elements and the distinctions between each of these complex forms. This performance won an Isadora Duncan Dance Award for Outstanding Achievement in Company performance!!
OngDance Company and Jiten Daiko have also developed collaborative performances for the Korea Day Cultural Festival in 2017 and 2019.
GAMELAN SEKAR JAYA
Galen organized two collaborative performances between Jiten Daiko and the jegog ensemble of Gamelan Sekar Jaya. These performances featured traditional, contemporary, and premiere work from both ensembles and were part of a two year-long collaborative process that took place between these two ensembles. The entire process included five performances at various venues, shared rehearsals, and culminated in a composition written by Galen Rogers in collaboration with master gamelan musician Ida Bagus Made Widnyana for mixed taiko and jegog ensemble called “Kolaborasi.” The collaborative process was grounded in the questions “What can taiko drummers learn from jegog musicians and vice-versa? How can a taiko/jegog collaboration challenge us to push the boundaries and to distill the essential elements of our respective forms?”
VIVIENNE VIVAS
Vivienne Vivas is a film student at the San Francisco Art Institute. For this project she created an experimental video using footage of Galen and two other dancers improvising in spaces that were meaningful to them. She made a site-specific performance space by projecting this video on the roof of the Art Institute, and had the same three dancers from the video improvise within the space, while Galen and members of Jiten Daiko improvised on the drums in order to support and amplify the movement of the dancers.