Wake Me When It’s Green – M3 commission with Gwen Laster

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June saw the release of “Wake Me When It’s Green” – a new music and video composition and collaboration between Dafna Naphtali and violinist Gwen Laster. The piece, features Naphtali on voice, electric guitar and electronics, and Laster’s violin and voice, is homage to the duo’s recently departed fathers and a celebration of a sky full of ancestors.

The piece was commissioned by M3 Mutual Mentorship for Musicians as part of the work of the Fall 2022 Equinox cohort. The piece premiered on June 13th at the National Jazz Museum of Harlem, along with 5 other commissions of duo pieces created by the cohort’s 12 members. A Lifetime Achievement award was also presented that evening to pianist Michele Rosewoman. More information about M3 and the Fall 2022 cohort can be found here:https://dafna.info/wp-admin/post.php?post=4473&action=edit

Below is the piece as it was broadcast on June 13th. To see all of the commissioned pieces by the cohort, watch from the beginning!

residency at APO-33 in Nantes

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Dafna was in residence at APO-33 in Nantes, France, June 26-July 9, working on her new multichannel audio/video piece “Audio Chandelier: Passeri”. The piece with 10-channels of audio and 4-channel video reflects on changing patterns of bird migration, climate change and bird song. She gave a concert at the opening July 8th, which overlapped with Nantes Maker Campus.

More information is on Instagram and Facebook.

Dafna Naphtali DUOS++OCTET at Roulette 4/24

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DUOS++OCTET is an upcoming performance at Roulette Intermedium in Brooklyn, NY
bringing together Dafna Naphtali’s long-time duo partners, her live-sound-processing of her voice and their instruments, plus Dafna’s 8-channel Audio Chandelier in live performance.

April 24th, 8pm @Roulette Intermedium
tickets and info: https://roulette.org/event/dafna-naphtali-duosoctet/

Dafna Naphtali – live electroacoustics, voice
Jen Baker – trombone / multiphonics (Clip Mouth Unit)
Gordon Beeferman – organ/piano/toy piano (Pulsing Dot)
Chuck Bettis – electronics / throat
Ras Moshe Burnett – saxophones, flute
Hans Tammen – electronics, guitar
Edith Lettner – saxophones, duduk
Andrew Drury – percussion/drums

Dafna Naphtali: DUOS++OCTET

Guggenheim Fellowship

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Dafna Naphtali has been awarded 2023 Guggenheim Fellowship!


John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation announced the 2023 Fellowships, and has awarded 171 artists, researchers, writers and others this prestigious award.

This is an outstanding opportunity and it is humbling to be included in this cohort of brilliant scholars and artists.

Announcements

Constellations with Thea Little

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Constellations is a new installation/performance exploring Feng Shui concepts via interactive-aleatoric activation of recorded sounds, voice, found objects and spoken word phrases corresponding to each of the 9 quadrant-spaces (Bagua+Center) in Feng-Shui in the Chinese practice of spatial arrangement of a space for positive energy flow.

Begun as an invited collaboration between artists on Gold Bolus label for their Super Bolus V Compliation 2022, Constellations is continuing beyond the first track they made together, and an initial work-in-progress showing at Chez Bushwick in 2022. What started as a track for Super Bolus V has serendipitously turned into a larger concept for installation and performance.

Thea and Dafna decided to explore Feng Shui concepts through Aleatoric activation of Vocals, Words, Singing and Field Recordings.

Each of the quadrants differs conceptually (e.g., Career & Life path, Fame & Reputation, Love & relationships). Each Bagua quadrant has related elements (Wood, Fire, Metal, etc), related verbs, adjectives and other associated words which we recorded.  Thea is training in Feng Shui practice and has brought her expertise to the project.  

Dafna is inspired by methods behind Beckett’s novel “Lessness”, and its randomized order of sentences. She uses similar concepts to create spoken phrases, assembled from our pre-recorded Bagua words, with a software she’s writing (Max/MSP), each generated sentence relating to a quadrant. The words and vocal sounds play from multiple audio speakers, as sounds will be activated via proximity sensors as visitors are near or touch curated  found objects placed in each quadrant of the installation.  We’ll incorporate video within some quadrants (either projected or on small video screens) . All to be underscored by nine 6-channel vocal compositions (Dafna singing), changing over time in response to visitors’ location.

Women on Making at Whitebox Gallery Oct 8-23

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Women on Making at Whitebox Gallery Oct 8-23
Presenting video.visuals.movement and sound work by Linda Mary Montano, Dafna Naphtali, Yohanna M. Roa, Zorica Colic, Kim Connerton, Tamiko Kawata, Wendy Miller, Maho Ogawa. Curated by Masa Hosojima.

Included is Dafna Naphtali’s audio-video AWOL_socket (2016) created in multi-chain of controls (modular synths controlled by facial movement and Max patches, in turn controlling video synthesis, feedback and a Nam June Paik “Wobbulator”). Created as part of a 2016 Signal Culture residency.


Opening performances @Whitebox Oct 8:
Yohanna’s “Textile Woman” 7:30pm
Wolfgang Lanzenberger’s film “Documenta Fifteen” 7:45pm
Dafna Naphtali (voice/electronics) & Maho Ogawa (movement artist) 8:00pm

Whitebox Gallery: 9 Avenue B, New York NY.
https://whiteboxnyc.org/2022/exhibitions/making/

Fall 2022 M³ (Mutual Mentorship for Musicians).

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Great news! Dafna’s been selected for the Fall Equinox 2022 Cohort of Mutual Mentorship for Musicians. M³ is a platform created in 2020, co-founded by vocalist-composers Jen Shyu and Sara Serpa, to empower, elevate, normalize and give visibility to women, non-binary musicians and those of other historically underrepresented gender identities in intersection with race, sexuality, or ability across generations in the US and worldwide, through a radical model of mentorship and musical collaborative commissions. https://mutualmentorshipformusicians.org/

Fall Equinox 2022 Cohort is: Krissy Bergmark – tabla (Chicago), Aline Frazão – voice, guitar (Angola/Berlin), Jessica Jones – tenor saxophone/piano (NYC), Tara Kannangara – trumpet/voice (Toronto, Canada), Gwen Laster – violin (Beacon, NY), Rosángela Isabel Pérez Molero – violin (Venezuela/Argentina), Naomi Nakanishi – piano (Boston), Dafna Naphtali – electronics/voice (NYC), CC Sunchild- piano/voice (Atlanta), Zeynep Toraman- Electronics/Composer (guitar and synth) (Berlin/Turkey), Ni Made Ayu Dwi Sattvitri – gamelan (Indonesia), Kavita Shah – voice/piano/ukulele/electronics (NYC). Stay tuned for Dafna’s new project with Gwen Laster (violin) in 2023!