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Gallery Dr. Teeth's Public Address System
Mark McCutcheon
Dr. Teeth's Public Address System was performed in the Lower Massey Hall at the University of Guelph, October 17, 2001.
"Assigned to present a seminar on The Public, Federico García Lorca's surreal adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, I finished my reading of Lorca's play with the conviction that the text would invite and reward a surreal seminar. Having recently acquired the Bassment Jaxx single "Romeo," I decided that the dialogic and defamiliarizing capacities of DJ practice made it a medium whose surrealist potential warrants further investigation. To this end, I composed a playlist for the seminar, with "Romeo" as its touchstone. In this context, the medium's dependence on a "PA" or public address system for dissemination offered a fortuitous intertext for the source play's title and a formal problematic for the performance.
The resulting set included a thematically pertinent and decontextualized variety of samples––e.g. an introductory sample from a phonograph recording of A Midsummer Night's Dream (also named by Lorca as a source for The Public), Chuck D hyping "Public Domain," and an on-beat sample from Tchaikovsky's "Romeo and Juliet" theme--and, moreover, proved eminently danceable. To get the class dancing was the primary goal I set for the seminar, and it exceeded my expectations."
Audio Clip: Dr. Teeth's Public Address System
Playlist includes:
Intro sample adapted from William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet (dir. Baz Luhrman 1996)
Basement Jaxx "Romeo" (XL 2001) [includes samples of "The Muppet Show" and Public Domain featuring Chuck D "Rock the funky beats" (Xtra 2001)]
Basement Jaxx "Red alert" (XL 1999)
DJ Rap "Good to be alive" Deep Dish RMX (Work 1999) [includes sample of Tchaikovsky "Romeo and Juliet" Hooked on Classics RMX (K-Tel 1981)]
Download Dr. Teeth Seminar on Federico
García Lorca's The Public
Link
to Database
Email: drteeth@leisuresociety.com
