Sven-Åke Johansson

Recorded at the Roundhouse 1972, during the ICES Festival."For this show we rehearsed a week in a small village in the south of Holland. The repertoire of the first part was a kind of "frozen improvisation". We made some written plans about the form and structures and then rehearsed it for the whole week. So during these rehearsals things moved from improvisation into fixed form, just by remembering what we have played, and polishing it. This is a working concept that later became a sort of standard method in my work. The second part of the performance was totally different. Sven Johansson made a choreography on the music of "The Grand Canyon Suite" by Grofe. We didn't play the music ourselves, but we had a tape of the music played. And we had this dance act on it, we were all dressed up as animals. I was the big bear, with ears and all, and we danced the awaking of the day, the adventures of the animals, the storm, and returning to peace at the end. We were not dancers at all, and it was very amateurish on purpose. Those were the days...

(Luc Houtkamp, from the liner notes)