Award-Winning Composer Sends Fringe to Sleep with Sloth

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Award-Winning Composer Sends Fringe to Sleep with Sloth Symphony

Multi-media production and musical sensory experience A Symphony of Sloths premieres in the New Zealand Fringe Festival 2014. Taking its inspirations from slow-moving animal the Sloth, Composer and Director Marika Pratley will challenge common perceptions of Sloths through music.

Pratley’s ‘obsession’ with Sloths developed whilst studying towards a Bachelor of Music majoring in Composition at the New Zealand School of Music. She composed her first ‘sloth work’ titled Sloth Knows for Javanese Gamelan, wine glasses, and pipe organ for her graduation performance.

A development of this concept and using the original composition as a base for the soundtrack, A Symphony of Sloths features an unusual combination of instruments, including Indonesian Gamelan and DIY electronics. This will be the first time Pratley incorporates the use of robotics into a musical performance.

“The sloth robots are intended to enhance the surreal atmosphere we experience while daydreaming,” she says. In addition, there will be video projections of sloth-inspired movement.

Pratley was awarded an Honorary Mention for Sound Design under the Production Design Category at the New Zealand Fringe Festival 2012, for Salted Singlet’s
production of A Unfortunate Willingness to Agree. Her first composition for dance, this work was also awarded Best Dance and toured to the Auckland Fringe Festival in 2013.

A Symphony of Sloths

Puppies, 110 Tory St

6pm, 16th

New Zealand Fringe Festival

Entry by koha.

ENDS

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