…The Art of Not Playing…?, 2023
Leo Genovese with Nat Mugavero and John Lockwood Performance, 1:17:21 minutes
From the series “Propositions from the DeadWIP”

Organized by Sami Hopkins at ISSUE Project Room, New York (See program webpage)




Thursday, June 24th at 8pm EST, 2021 Suzanne Fiol Curatorial Fellow Sami Hopkins presents their second program in Propositions from the deadWIP, featuring composer and Argentinian pianist Leo Genovese in collaboration with bassist John Lockwood and percussionist Nat Mugavero.

Propositions from the deadWIP is a multidisciplinary performance series that balances considerations of knowledge and fallibility launching from the premise that creative knowing imbues the process of making as much as a work’s eventual presentation or future iterations. By never claiming to reach finality, the works in this series accept the condition of being always “in progress,” with the potential to reimagine the status of a work-in-progress (WIP) altogether.

In this second installment of the series, Leo Genovese devises work in-trio with John Lockwood on bass and Nat Mugavero on drums. Using the notion of intuition-as-guide, together they will experiment with the idea of sounds which reevaluate, muddy, and at times reject the very foundations on which music is usually conceived. To paraphrase the artist’s words, this project will launch from the following guiding principles:
  1. The practice of disappearing during the process of creating
  2. Engaging in practice and study, followed then by the dismissal of the ideas that lie therein. Avoiding overthought or judgement.
  3. Trusting the "I don’t know." Be naked, be vulnerable, be cool with it.
  4. Re-learning how to follow the instincts
  5. Practicing the sixth sense: the sense that rules all other senses.
  6. Opening the third ear: the one that hears abolished or forgotten sounds
  7. Not being in control of the so-called “music” that’s created.
  8. Asking, where is faith playing a part in this process?
  9. Ending with the following questions: When music ends, what happens? Can we play anti-music? Can we play sounds without listening for “music” in the traditional sense? And with this, can we play selfless music?

With the above, Genovese and his co-creators invite the ISSUE audience to join them in what one might call “the art of not playing”.