Avant-garde composer/performer John Zorn and Whitney Museum of American Art curator Jay Sanders discuss the practices of experimental performance. This event coincides with the immersive Whitney exhibition, “Rituals of Rented Island: Object Theater, Loft Performance, and the New Psychodrama—Manhattan, 1970-1980,” which opens on October 31, 2013. Through installations, objects, photography, and live performances, the exhibition recreates the 1970s. Featured are stagings of Zorn’s Theatre of Musical Optics, a performance art project that grew out of his theory that music is “not actually sound itself, but a way of manipulating sound,” and his impulse to manipulate visual media in a musical way.

John Zorn is one of New York City’s most influential musicians. As a performer, composer, arranger, producer, improviser, collaborator, and avant-garde impresario, he has explored and revolutionized a vast array of musical genres, including jazz, rock, hard-core punk, classical, and klezmer. He has hundreds of album credits, including recordings with his two bands, Masada, whose music is  described as Jewish jazz, and Naked City, which performs an often aggressive mix of jazz, rock, and grindcore. Zorn’s record label, Tzadik, features the best experimental music from contemporary musician-composers worldwide. His latest recording is Dreamachines, inspired by the “third mind collaborations” of the performance artist/writer Brion Gysin and author William S. Burroughs.

Jay Sanders is the Whitney’s first curator to specialize in performance arts. He has organized numerous events featuring the visual arts, performing arts, film, and the spoken word. He was co-curator of the 2012 Whitney Biennial, whose featured performance by choreographer Sarah Michelson won the museum’s Melva Bucksbaum Award. Sanders has written extensively for Artforum, Parkett, Texte zur Kunst, BOMB, and other publications. He has also produced and edited a DVD on the work of theater artist Richard Foreman, published a book of Jack Smith’s drawings, and co-edited, with poet Charles Bernstein, the exhibition catalogue Poetry Plastique.

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