The first annual meeting of the Rhythm/Rythmn Society occurred July 2021 in two venues in Cincinnati, Ohio. The first was a visual wall didactic inside of Breanne Trammell's exhibition, "Slow Burn" at The Weston Gallery that featured found images and text that served as a kind of mood/suggestion board of potential alternatives and strategies that push against a conventional understanding of rhythm and beat making. A self-published takeaway publication featuring an essay and images was provided to further elucidate and inspire.
VIDEO HERE The second event was a multi sensory music and performance variety show that occurred at The Hoffner Lodge in the Northside neighborhood of Cincinnati, OH. The evening commenced with an audience participatory event featuring musician Ben Sloan on drums. We invited all attendees to bring their own percussion instruments or objects to play along (or against!) Ben’s drumming for an experiment in cooperation and friendly antagonism. Despite the bulk of attendees not being conventionally trained on any sort of percussive instrument, they nonetheless were able to follow Ben (a skilled and trained percussionist and drummer) when their attempts to thwart his beats and rhythms failed. The experiment ultimately proved that not only is there a propensity among a gathered group to turn musical discord into harmony if given the choice, but to favor organization over disorganization. This latter point will be explored in further more ensemble driven efforts that dive deeper into musical and performing habits and behaviors among amateurs and professionals.
Other acts for the evening included a series of experimental poems, pomes, and sounds by Chicago artist Jesse Malmed, and musical and performance sounds by Dreams of Surfing and Fruit LoOops.
Rhythm/Rythmn Society evolved out of Chris Reeves' performative lecture "How to Rhythm/How to Rythmn", in collaboration with Breanne Trammell on drums, at Public Storage in October 2020.
