(Note: Hunting Drums: First Movement was originally installed/performed April 2018 at Black Mountain College as part of ReHappening Festival, Asheville NC)

Hunting Drums is a performative/interactive “open set” performance piece consisting of bows, arrows, mallets, drums, cymbals, and a gong. At the center is a large tree, or cluster of trees. This piece is not site-specific but works in specific ways depending on the site. There is no “score” or set choreography. There are only parameters of the piece: the internal rules dictated by the materials, the environment, the participants and their particular dispositions. Duration may vary, depending on stamina of participants. This piece places the participant at an intersection between sports, warfare, sculpture and performance; to be the archer, the hunter, the spectator and the drummer simultaneously.

Mallet heads (from a drum stick) are fastened to the end of nine arrows. A tuned bass drum is mounted (and mic-ed*) in a tree at least six feet from the ground. Around this drum a snare, tom and floor tom are similarly mounted, heads facing out. Cymbals and tambourines are hung at various points throughout the branches. A single gong is hung from the highest point possible. This array may be expanded depending on the tree and drum pieces available. A perimeter is mapped out with white rope so that passing spectators do not wander onto the shooting range or behind the tree when the piece is active.

In the original iteration the piece was primarily interactive, with participants lining up and (under direction by the author) taking turns using the bows to shoot mallet/arrows at the drums; sometimes missing, sometimes hitting their mark, and sometimes ricocheting wildly so as to create a polyrhythmic (and completely unintended) effect.