Beyond the Fishbowl

Pancake7 co-founder Becca Barniskis writes about their upcoming Linesmasher performance and how it relates to the mission of Zeitgeist and Studio Z. Linesmasher is a groundbreaking performance series dedicated to smashing artistic, cultural, color, gender, and just about any other line you can think of. Don’t stay in your lane.

​On Saturday, April 21, 2018, our band Pancake7 will be performing at Studio Z with singer/poet Talonie Starr, and singer/visual artist Jorge Cuascut in the last of a year-long series of Linesmasher events entitled Linesmasher 8 - QUEST: Beyond the Fishbowl. Jorge and Talonie, who hail from a vibrant Chicago music scene, are highly original song writers, virtuosic vocalists, and powerful performers whose work spans a huge range of influences and genres. Jorge and Talonie are both uniquely able to compose and improvise based on a very broad range of influences, and always apply a highly original and inventive approach to original work and covers alike.  They are known for their solo work as singers, artists and writers, as well as their stunning, often layered vocal leads and harmonies in the eclectic soul group Chess Club, and rock band Super Moon, both co-founded with Nick Jaffe (formerly Chicago-based) of Pancake7.  Their performances are at once stunningly beautiful, often highly technical, and completely spontaneous and explosive.  
 
Also joining us on stage will be special guests from past Linesmasher events: poet Sharon Chmielarz, emcee/producer Soul Reflect, and emcee Kaoz. Projections of Jorge’s stunning paintings and drawings will form a vibrant visual context for the performances. 

“thINK” by Jorge Cuascut (acrylic, permanent marker on canvas 48 x 24 in. (Dec. 2, 2012)

​Pancake7 was conceived as a dynamic musical collective that incorporates sounds and ideas from many genres through a process of “spacefunkconstruction.” P7’s sound draws on broad and deep precedents from post-punk, 70’s and 80’s R&B, to avant-garde, classical, and free jazz. On April 21st, the band will be combining the modernist/absurdist lyrical sensibilities of myself (poet/vocalist Becca Barniskis) and the idiosyncratic funk-rock guitar stylings of session and touring veteran and producer Nick Jaffe. The band is driven by the deep, hip hop influenced rhythm section of drummer Matt Keseley and bassist Shea Drenkow.

Pancake7

For Pancake7 “beyond the fishbowl” (coined by Jorge Cuascut) means venturing outside of  one’s normal boundaries and also beyond the false dichotomy of audience (outside the fishbowl) and artist (inside the fishbowl). Our aim is to destabilize and then rupture the fourth wall through sonic and linguistic means. We wanted to do this last Linesmasher performance at Studio Z because, under the direction of Zeitgeist, it represents for us an important site for the Twin Cities where adventurous music and performance are the point. Studio Z and Zeitgeist have been a huge help to me and my main music collaborator, guitarist and musician Nick Jaffe, in connecting us with collaborators in the new music scene and exposing us to new and different ways of working. In 2016 & 2017 Nick and I performed new compositions for Studio Z’s New Ruckus Composer Night. Later, as part of Zeitgeist’s annual five-day summer Composer Workshop last August, we developed some new work with members of Zeitgeist where we also met composer and musician Dameun Strange, which led to Dameun performing his work with Pancake7 in the most recent Linesmasher show.

Originally conceived in 2016 by Pancake7 co-founder and bandleader Nick Jaffe as a way to bring together a broad range of artists in unexpected ways, Linesmasher received support from the Minnesota State Arts Board to host six shows in 2017-18. The goal of Linesmasher is to bring together musicians, poets, emcees, and other musical and poetic performers and audiences from as wide a range of backgrounds, milieus, and genres as possible to encourage musical and artistic cross-pollination and innovation. P7 hosts each Linesmasher event—often at venues where people do not expect to encounter the type of music and performance being featured—and the band actively collaborates with the featured artists. Because Studio Z is dedicated to bringing together diverse performers and audiences to collaborate, experience new genres and ways of making music and art, and have interesting discussions about the work, we feel very at home here!
 
Creating a space that functions like Studio Z is perhaps not as easy as it seems. Real collaboration requires that the people involved be open and curious about each other’s work. It also requires an ability to set aside preconceived notions about what something should sound like or look like. And it takes time and space to find out what is possible. That is part of why we launched the Linesmasher series: not only to cross cultural, racial and genre lines, but also to work outside of our normal processes.

Over the last 18 months Pancake7 has collaborated on Linesmasher shows with artists as diverse as Dead People Particles; spoken word artist IBé; emcee Katana Da Don and poet Sharon Chmielarz; dancer and choreographer Dolo McComb; and singer/songwriter Zen Anton. No two Linesmasher events look or sound the same. We aren’t quite sure what April 21 will look and sound like. But, as we like to tell ourselves: if we’re not a little unsure and a little scared about what is going to happen then we’re clearly not turning the steering wheel hard enough left.  Don’t stay in your lane. ​

LINESMASHER 8 - QUEST: BEYOND THE FISHBOWL
​PANCAKE7 FEATURING TALONIE STARR AND JORGE CUASCUT

April 21  •  8 p.m.​  •  ​Free  •  Details