Judy Dunaway
The Balloon Music Manifesto
From my earliest work with balloons as musical instruments, I instinctively knew that I must limit myself to the balloon and my body. This required that the balloon function not only as a musical appendage by which I may transmit sound, but also one that transmitted vibrations back to me through its sensitive body. It was essential to be able to physically feel the vibrations, air pressure, and texture of the balloons. By using my hands, mouth and body I could control tiny sensitive manipulations that opened the door to greater possibilities for my instruments. This corporeal somatic relationship also served as a personal rebellion against archaic power structures that have sought to control and oppress women, and eventually all humankind, by severing the connection between the psyche and the body.
Throughout the past millennium, the dissociation of music and the human body was a necessary and powerful tool with which power structures in Western culture controlled and manipulated the masses. In medieval times, church officials in Rome sought to ban music from the church for fear it was too sensual. The nun Hildegard von Bingen (the first acknowledged composer in Western culture), convinced the church officials that all sacred music, instrumental as well as vocal, functioned as a bridge between God and humanity. However, as the millennium progressed, sensuality became more associated with sin, and sensuality was considered to be a product of the feminine (whether “the feminine” embodied itself as a woman, a transgender (as with Joan of Arc) or a homosexual). The church believed the seductiveness of femininity must be repressed and oppressed in order to protect men (including priests) from sin. And thus the sensuality of music was equally repressed and punished, lest it appear too “feminine.”
This repression of the body later justified slavery and colonial genocide by the European conquerers. Music and dance were a unified art in other cultures, and within this art, sex was glorified. This was used as yet another piece of evidence by the Europeans in their claim of superiority over other races. For the Europeans at this time, the dissociation of art and the body was considered the highest form of spirituality and an indication of the supremacy of Western intellect.
In the 20th Century, with the rise of feminism, civil rights, gay/gender rights, and a recognition of the intellectual equality of other cultures, this separation between art and the body began to disintegrate. The natural inclination of human beings to experience art holistically combined with the capabilities of new technology began to force the dominant power structures into a new acceptance. Film reunited sound and the moving image, and television transported it into a personal setting.
In the 1960’s, influenced by the philosophies of John Cage and inspired by the new opportunities for individual self-expression, avant-garde sound artists of all races, genders, sexualities, and social strata celebrated the end of “high art.” The toy balloon frequently appears as both a statement against elitism and an exploration of formerly forbidden soundscapes, in the work of these optimistic pioneers. In 1963, as part of the first Annual New York Avant Garde Festival, Charlotte Moorman included a balloon pop in her interpretation of Cage’s “26’1.1499” for string player” (1963). Numerous artists involved with the so-called “Fluxus” movement including George Maciunus, Ben Patterson, Ay-O, Claus Oldenberg, and Robert Watts used balloons as sound producers in their multi-media happenings. Mauricio Kagel included seven pages of balloon instructions in his seminal composition “Acustica.” (1968).
However, jazz composer Anthony Braxton’s “Composition 25” (1972) best embodies the power and symbolism of the balloon in the early avant-garde. Balloon sounds replicated those of expensive electronic equipment that was not affordable to most African-American composers at that time. Thus the balloon, like jazz itself, functioned as a parody of white culture and a protest against classism. Furthermore, Braxton used balloons as improvisational tools, rather than controlled instruments. Be-bop, and the collective improvisational music it spawned, showed the African tradition of improvisation as rivaling the intellect of the European model. Braxton used balloons as a tool to change the way the improvisors thought about sound, to free them from inhibitions and to open their minds to limitless possibilities.
My own work then, does not come out of a void. Creating a large body of work for balloons has allowed me to develop a vocabulary outside the realm of oppressive classical heritage. It has raised the ordinary and mundane to the status of high art. I have fetishized this simple cheap toy in my music, as the violin has been fetishized for centuries by Western-European influenced composers. In an era where the progress toward a woman’s control of her own body is threatened, I have coupled myself to a musical instrument that expresses sensuality, sexuality and humanity without inhibition.
The Balloon Music Manifesto
From my earliest work with balloons as musical instruments, I instinctively knew that I must limit myself to the balloon and my body. This required that the balloon function not only as a musical appendage by which I may transmit sound, but also one that transmitted vibrations back to me through its sensitive body. It was essential to be able to physically feel the vibrations, air pressure, and texture of the balloons. By using my hands, mouth and body I could control tiny sensitive manipulations that opened the door to greater possibilities for my instruments. This corporeal somatic relationship also served as a personal rebellion against archaic power structures that have sought to control and oppress women, and eventually all humankind, by severing the connection between the psyche and the body.
Throughout the past millennium, the dissociation of music and the human body was a necessary and powerful tool with which power structures in Western culture controlled and manipulated the masses. In medieval times, church officials in Rome sought to ban music from the church for fear it was too sensual. The nun Hildegard von Bingen (the first acknowledged composer in Western culture), convinced the church officials that all sacred music, instrumental as well as vocal, functioned as a bridge between God and humanity. However, as the millennium progressed, sensuality became more associated with sin, and sensuality was considered to be a product of the feminine (whether “the feminine” embodied itself as a woman, a transgender (as with Joan of Arc) or a homosexual). The church believed the seductiveness of femininity must be repressed and oppressed in order to protect men (including priests) from sin. And thus the sensuality of music was equally repressed and punished, lest it appear too “feminine.”
This repression of the body later justified slavery and colonial genocide by the European conquerers. Music and dance were a unified art in other cultures, and within this art, sex was glorified. This was used as yet another piece of evidence by the Europeans in their claim of superiority over other races. For the Europeans at this time, the dissociation of art and the body was considered the highest form of spirituality and an indication of the supremacy of Western intellect.
In the 20th Century, with the rise of feminism, civil rights, gay/gender rights, and a recognition of the intellectual equality of other cultures, this separation between art and the body began to disintegrate. The natural inclination of human beings to experience art holistically combined with the capabilities of new technology began to force the dominant power structures into a new acceptance. Film reunited sound and the moving image, and television transported it into a personal setting.
In the 1960’s, influenced by the philosophies of John Cage and inspired by the new opportunities for individual self-expression, avant-garde sound artists of all races, genders, sexualities, and social strata celebrated the end of “high art.” The toy balloon frequently appears as both a statement against elitism and an exploration of formerly forbidden soundscapes, in the work of these optimistic pioneers. In 1963, as part of the first Annual New York Avant Garde Festival, Charlotte Moorman included a balloon pop in her interpretation of Cage’s “26’1.1499” for string player” (1963). Numerous artists involved with the so-called “Fluxus” movement including George Maciunus, Ben Patterson, Ay-O, Claus Oldenberg, and Robert Watts used balloons as sound producers in their multi-media happenings. Mauricio Kagel included seven pages of balloon instructions in his seminal composition “Acustica.” (1968).
However, jazz composer Anthony Braxton’s “Composition 25” (1972) best embodies the power and symbolism of the balloon in the early avant-garde. Balloon sounds replicated those of expensive electronic equipment that was not affordable to most African-American composers at that time. Thus the balloon, like jazz itself, functioned as a parody of white culture and a protest against classism. Furthermore, Braxton used balloons as improvisational tools, rather than controlled instruments. Be-bop, and the collective improvisational music it spawned, showed the African tradition of improvisation as rivaling the intellect of the European model. Braxton used balloons as a tool to change the way the improvisors thought about sound, to free them from inhibitions and to open their minds to limitless possibilities.
My own work then, does not come out of a void. Creating a large body of work for balloons has allowed me to develop a vocabulary outside the realm of oppressive classical heritage. It has raised the ordinary and mundane to the status of high art. I have fetishized this simple cheap toy in my music, as the violin has been fetishized for centuries by Western-European influenced composers. In an era where the progress toward a woman’s control of her own body is threatened, I have coupled myself to a musical instrument that expresses sensuality, sexuality and humanity without inhibition.