Jul 20 —
Jul 21,
Singing Comet
by Kaylee Gibson.
A collaboration featuring dancers Jobel Navarrete-
Medina and Alyson Van with an original score and performance by Annahstasia Enuke & Mia Garcia
As you orbit and explore the VDL House's space, you may view the performance from various perspectives, including windows, balconies, and mirrors, while becoming part of the larger orbit of bodies.
This piece is inspired by Comet 67P, a Jupiter-family comet from the Kuiper belt. In 2014, the Rosetta spacecraft’s Philae lander reached the comet’s surface, becoming the first spacecraft to land on the nucleus of a comet. It revealed the comet’s unique shape resulting from two bodies gravitationally being pulled toward one another until they touch in a gentle, low-velocity collision called a contact binary. Scientists theorize that within its lifetime, over thousands of years, the comet continually breaks apart and comes back together, forming a new unison each time.
Scientists discovered that the comet emits a ‘song’ through oscillations in its environment's magnetic field. The song is being sung at 40-50 millihertz, far below human hearing, which typically picks up sound between 20 Hz and 20 kHz. To make the music audible to the human ear, the frequencies have been increased by a factor of about 10,000. Annahstasia Enuke and Mia Garcia created an original score based on and inspired by the data from the comet’s song.
Another fascinating discovery was that compounds were found on the comet known to be precursors to life as we know it on Earth. This supports the theory that water and organic molecules were brought by asteroids and comets to the young Earth after it cooled following its formation, providing the key building blocks for the emergence of life.
Singing Comet will be performed at the Neutra VDL House, reverberating through its volumes and surfaces.
Kaylee Gibson is a multidisciplinary artist. She grew up in the Central Coast of California, where the Redwoods and Santa Lucia mountains meet the Pacific Ocean. The landscape instilled within her a deep sensitivity. She began dancing ballet as a child, and continued training with the Joffrey Ballet in NYC. Her language of movement evolved as she began exploring new, more holistic modalities and other creative expressions. In 2015, she formed The Movement Sessions, a project based performance series bringing together artists, dancers and musicians in unique spaces to explore ideas through presence. She has curated, directed, choreographed and performed works in Los Angeles, Mexico City and beyond including Galeria OMR, Proyectos Monclova, The VDL House, and Dries Van Noten’s ‘little house.”
Jobel Medina, born 1990 in Pasig City, Philippines, is a Los Angeles-based choreographer and dancer. He creates for stage and film, known for his distinct movement style. Critics praise his work as "inventive and eye-catching, detailed and wide-ranging." Medina's work has been presented at The Broad Museum, Institute of Art Los Angeles, Museum of Contemporary Art, and REDCAT from 2022 to 2024. He performs in Dimitri Chamblas's "Take Me Home" and Benjamin Millepied's "Grace." Collaborators include Kim Gordon, Alex Prager, Tino Sehgal, Simon McBurney, Christopher Bordenave, Shahar Binyamini, and Tom Weinberger. He has appeared in commercial campaigns for Calvin Klein, Lexus, OnStar, Adidas, White Claw, and ON. Medina holds an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts and teaches movement workshops at U.S. universities.
Alyson Van is a movement artist whose dance has led her to be the face of numerous ad campaigns (e.g. Apple, Lexus, Adidas), the choreographer for Grimes, Facebook, and more, and an educator/program director of the youth empowerment non-profit, Future Shock Los Angeles. There she enhanced the org’s street & club dance curriculum with socio-emotional learning components, an integrated consent model, and advanced artistic development. Alyson additionally guides movement exploration workshops with an emphasis on restorative dance- honoring dance beyond performance, and embracing it as a means of reconnecting with and healing the spirit.
When Annahstasia Enuke writes a song, it embodies a world of its own. The self-taught singer-songwriter says her artistic practice is steeped in fantasy and romanticism, and Annahstasia’s rose-colored perspective is elucidated by her enchantingly sumptuous and acrobatic voice—one she developed through a lasting appreciation for complex vocalists like Bill Withers, Nina Simone, and Janis Joplin. She rarely, if ever, writes her lyrics down, instead preferring to imagine the spirits that live in her songs—how they might look, move, talk or dance—and speak to their identities in real time through her music. Her first solo release, 2019’s Sacred Bull was an honest experiment that opened doors to collaborations with the likes of singer Raveena, who features on her new record, and Lenny Kravitz, who invited her to support him as an opener on his “Raise Vibrations” European tour. Now, Annahstasia’s own stunning voice is the powerline that weaves together her forthcoming folk-rooted record, Revival, a delicately produced project that both renewed her love of music after a period of uncertainty, and facilitated a potent resurgence of self.
Mia Garcia is a Cuban-Mexican sonic sculptor based in Southern California. Her work explores the ever expanding nature of music as the vibratory connector amongst all things.
Through the vessel playing various instruments and producing records, she found herself composing for film, directing experimental sound installations, and tending to practices of communal healing.
Jason Lader is a twice Grammy nominated New York raised LA based record producer, engineer, multi-instrumentalist and composer. He began playing guitar at the age of 10. His guitar teacher Roger Greenawalt was a record producer and let Jason tag along with him to sessions, which sparked his lifelong passion for recording music and recording studios. After playing in bands in NYC he moved to gain world experience in London and then landed in LA where he began working with the Producer Rick Rubin.
Over the last 10 years Jason has worked on many records with an eclectic variety of artists in various capacities. He’s contributed to albums by Red Hot Chili Peppers, Frank Ocean, Elvis Costello, Haim, Lana Del Rey, Cat Stevens, Lady Gaga and many others.
Sound Cultivator: Jason Lader
Sound Technician: Dane Sandborg
Assistant: David Sandborg
Special Thank You to VDL House Director Noam Saragosti
The program is supported by:
The Sam Francis Foundation
A.P.C.
Cal Poly Pomona ENV
The European Space Agency