By Tereneh Idia
Featured Photo Credit: Tereneh Idia
“I can make this just this and then I can distort it./I can add effects. Echo reverb. And that's just one sound./So then here's my other sound. There's my little hi hat, little noise that I have with different tunings. 8 clap ride move dub easy better, better, better, better…”
What sounds like the beginning of a Gwendolyn Brooks’ poem is actually DJ and producer, Herman “Soy Sos” Pearl, discussing the sound for CIRCLES, the evolving dance production by STAYCEE PEARL dance project & Soy Sos which will be performed at the August Wilson African American Cultural Center on October 28 - 30, 2021.
Herman is sitting in his Lawrenceville studio in front of his elaborate mixing board. As he describes the process you feel that the music of CIRCLES is being created in the same loving, energized and community spirit as the choreography, taking you into a different world, time and space. It is the music that is the map, sounding the way for the dancers and audience alike, to that new universe.
The world building of the music is created in collaboration with Soy Sos at the helm, he explains, “Over the pandemic I did all these drum patterns over lockdown…trying to come up with beats and I was doing all this on these synthesizers and mixers…these are things that I did over the course of like the last year and a half.”
Then with a huge new catalog of beats, which he is sharing with collaborators. Local singers such as Madame Delores aka Christiane Leech, DOTGOV, Yah Lioness as well as national artists like DJ Haram. Herman shares videos of the dance with the artists and if they are in Pittsburgh they are “sent to the booth with an iPad with a video of CIRCLES,” according to Herman. Where they can watch and create in real-time.
Herman’s goals are two-fold, one to support his wife, Staycee Pearl’s choreography but to also “Push the boundaries,” he says. “As a music-obsessed person, I want to make sure I am presenting something new…I just want our project to be different, The choreography is set to a tempo, the dancers have to dance to a tempo.” But within that tempo are hundreds of options, so Herman says, “My job is to present new concepts…I just think sound and dance are friends that need each other.”
So there is also a distinct possibility that even if you see every performance of CIRCLES each one will be different. Because Herman is live mixing the music during the performance.
“The audience finds meaning in one word. It becomes a chant, a mantra, a hymn, that one word. It is a bit of an obsession but also it is energizing. ”
(L to R) STAYCEE PEARL dance project & Soy Sos dancers Lindsey McGivern, Chandler Maria Bingham & LaTrea Derome rehearse a phrase of CIRCLES: going in at Kelly Strayhorn Theater’s Alloy Studios.
Photo Credit: Kitoko Chargois
Herman does a real-time improvisation with a line of lyrics. He takes the pitch up and then down. The lyrics, each word, flows one, singing. Then slowly he pulls apart each word so a word feels like the whole line, then instead of focusing on a narrative from a line of words. The audience finds meaning in one word. It becomes a chant, a mantra, a hymn, that one word. It is a bit of an obsession but also it is energizing.
Herman tells a story of the emotional and experiential goal for the sound of CIRCLES:
“It was the first time we went to Jamaica in the late 80s. There was a song, we went to this party and they made the DJ pull that song up and start over again like six times. It was cool. It was like you could feel that energy of how lit that was. And they were pounding on the wall. I feel I want to use that power to move the whole room.”
Or in the case of CIRCLES - move the dancers, move the audience, move the theater - maybe even change the world.
Herman reflects on what he hopes to achieve: “I think it's up to me more to build out a good, aggressive soundtrack that pops and bangs and sounds really good. And to give that to the dancers because part of my mission is going to be to make sure that sounds good for them on stage so I'm going to be making sure it sounds good in the theater and making sure it sounds good on the stage because I don't want them to be not able to hear it or not able to feel it so, it needs to be thunderous in a good way.”
That thunder is reminiscent of the Yoruba goddess Oya, the warrior goddess of thunder, lighting, life, death and rebirth - Oya mean “she tore.” When the beat is dope and the dance is hot we can say They tore it up! Tear that shit up!
I suspect they will.
All events for CIRCLES are to be held at the: August Wilson African American Cultural Center 980 Liberty Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15222 Tickets coming soon!
CIRCLES: going in (Dance Premiere) Thursday, October 28 | 8:00 PM Friday, October 29 | Performance: 8:00 PM | Reception: 9:00 PM Saturday, October 30 | 8:00 PM
Co-Presented with the August Wilson African American Cultural Center and Kelly Strayhorn Theater, CIRCLES: going in is a full-length dance work celebrating #BlackGirlMagic. Layering dance, visual arts, and a live original score, the work presents snapshots of popular culture through Choreographer Staycee Pearl’s lens as a Black woman. CIRCLES is a colorful, unapologetic, and daring path to self-reclamation. CIRCLES is amplified by an original soundtrack created by Herman “Soy Sos” Pearl in collaboration with a diverse roster of club artists including DJ Haram, Yah Lioness, Madame Delores, DOTGOV, Queen Jo & more!
CIRCLES: reclamation (Gallery Exhibition) Opening Reception: Saturday, October 9 | 6:00-9:00 PM Viewing Dates: October 9-31
CIRCLES: reclamation is presented as part of CIRCLES: going in, an unapologetic, full-length dance work celebrating #BlackGirlMagic. Immerse yourself in this art exhibit featuring Black visual artists including Staycee Pearl, Bekezela Mguni, Kitoko Chargois, and sarah huny young. Works will draw from their shared explorations of Blackness and self-reclamation.
Tereneh Idia is an award-winning designer and writer focused on issues of social justice, environment, design, arts and culture.
Her work has appeared in Pittsburgh City Paper, PublicSource, New Pittsburgh Courier, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, AfroPunk, The North Star, StarTrek.com, The Frick Museum Pittsburgh and the book, TENDER a literary anthology & book of spells: evidence.
Her journalism awards include: Winner of the Golden Quill 2019 and 2020 for best columnist in daily paper and nominated again in 2021. The Robert L Vann Pittsburgh Black Media Federation Award for 2020. The 2020 Association of Alternative News Media Best Column Billy Manes Award winner for best column in the United States and Canada, nominated again in 2021.
She was a costume designer for STAYCEE PEARL dance project & Soy Sos’ Abby: In The Red.
CIRCLES is a National Performance Network (NPN) Creation & Development Fund Project co-commissioned by Kelly Strayhorn Theater, The Joyce Theater, and NPN. More information: www.npnweb.org. CIRCLES was made possible by the New England Foundation for the Arts' National Dance Project, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Co-commissioning Partners are Kelly Strayhorn Theater, August Wilson African American Cultural Center, and The Joyce Theater. The development of CIRCLES is made possible in part by the National Center for Choreography at The University of Akron (NCCAkron). CIRCLES is supported in part by The Pittsburgh Foundation’s Advancing Black Arts in Pittsburgh Fund, Heinz Endowments, and The Opportunity Fund.