The Great Lakes Ensemble

The Great Lakes Ensemble is an artistic exploration of the Great Lakes region—with musicians, dancers and visual artists who join the ensemble during performances and other creative projects. Since its inception in 2011 the Great Lakes Ensemble has performed its expanding repertoire in venues in Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Illinois.

This weekend GLE is performing during the Waterwheel World Water Day Symposium, at Surplus of Options (March 22, 9:30 p.m.), at WNUR (March 23, 2 p.m.), and in an Evanston park. Here are two scores that the ensemble will be performing—

• Cities on Waters: Invisible & Real. This score imagines imaginary, inaccurate, and truthful portrayals of cities along Great Lakes’ shores—such as Milwaukee, Detroit, Cleveland and Chicago. Writings by Saul Bellow, Sandra Cisneros, and Charlie LeDuff; and music by members of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, as well as Motown Records artists will be among the sources considered.
• Lines: Make, Erase, Move. This score focuses on natural and manmade lines that have come to define the Great Lakes region—shorelines, state and county lines, horizons, congressional districts that get gerrymandered, etc. This score is partially inspired by a score by Allan Kaprow, which states, “One of the pair draws a line on the ground in chalk. The other partner must follow the line close behind and erase it until either the eraser or the chalk is completely worn out.”

The Great Lakes Ensemble is developing other new material for performances scheduled for later this year.

Contributor: Dan Godston