"Split Sides" Radiohead & Sigur Rós in collaboration, 2003

[Lady Newell & Friends]

Added by Lady Newell & Friends - Curator http://www.waste-central.com

Thank you so much Rey Carbono & Hayen Mill, photos and information from Sigur Rós website 

SPLIT SIDES ! Radiohead & Sigur Rós: En 2003, Radiohead y Sigur Rós crearon en colaboración la música para la compañía de danza contemporánea de Merce Cunningham Dance Company's. La pieza se tituló: "Split Sides," y el debut fue el 14 de Octubre en New York's Brooklyn Academy of Music.

"Slipt Sides" fue interpretada en vivo por ambas bandas, Se trató de una sesión de música experimental y con improvisación coreográfica ya que los músicos no habían ensayado con los bailarines anteriormente.

Music for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company's piece "Split Sides," debut Oct. 14, 2003 at New York's Brooklyn Academy of Music

Radiohead & Sigur Ros - Split Sides from Hayen Mill on Vimeo.

Radiohead and Sigur Ros have created new music for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company's piece "Split Sides," which will debut Oct. 14 at New York's Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM). SOURCE

Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood reveals to Billboard.com that on opening night, each group will perform 20 minutes of live music with a twist: the dancers "won't have heard the music until they start."

"It is raising lots of interesting problems about what dance music is," Greenwood admits. "We're talking about the bands crossing from one to the other or sorting out a structure. It could be interesting. Maybe we'll all kind of surprise each other and do the opposite kind of music that we're known for."

"Split Sides" will also be staged Oct. 16-18 at BAM, with the dancers performing to a combination of pre-recorded music and live musicians attempting to recreate the Radiohead and Sigur Ros compositions. A similar arrangement will be utilized when Cunningham's troupe performs the piece elsewhere.

"Musicians copying what we're doing sounds bizarre to me," says Greenwood. "I feel for them! We only just know what we're doing. I'm sure it will be easy for them, but it just might be a bit weird."

A BAM spokesperson says Cunningham will add to the improvisational nature of the piece by employing two different stages and two different sets of costumes, allowing for various future permutations of the performance. Ticket information is not yet available, but the Oct. 14 debut will be a fundraiser of some kind.

We’ve had some queries about the sigur rós and radiohead collaboration. in september last year we informed you that sigur rós and radiohead are planning on writing music together for renowned dance choreographer Merce Cunningham‘s upcoming piece, to be premiered in new york city in october 2003. this news is now suddenly, for some reason, breaking in at various media publications but we have nothing new to report about the matter. at this stage it’s too early to tell what the collaboration will be like exactly but we’ll let you know as soon as there is progress in the matter.  SOURCE

MORE INFO SIGUR ROS WEBSITE

Split sides was a departure for mcdc in that, for the first time, the music was by two bands: radiohead, the british alternative rock group, and sigur rós, the experimental group from iceland. radiohead played live for the first performance only, sigur rós for many subsequent performances. at later performances, elements of radiohead�s contribution were played back in a recording, with some manipulation by mcdc musicians. neither band had seen the dance company before; the musicians of sigur rós constructed a kind of xylophone made of pointe shoes, connected to contact microphones.