soundpedro Navigating Toward New Horizons in a Post-COVID World

In 2013, after a phenomenal 10-year run of transforming Long Beach’s East Village Arts District into an annual, one-night-only indoor/outdoor gallery of multisensory installations, curating collective FLOOD felt the event known as SoundWalk had run its course.

But four years later, FLOOD reimagined/reincarnated SoundWalk for an entirely new space. Drawing almost a thousand people in its June 2017 launch and increasingly more over its two subsequent iterations, a new tradition, soundpedro, took hold on the grounds of Angels Gate Culture Center, the 36 lofty, arts-centered acres that crown the town that gave the event its name.

Of course, for reasons we’ve come to understand too well, soundpedro2020 — as originally intended — was a no-go. But like all of the most flexible arts organizations during the pandemic, FLOOD quickly pivoted toward the virtual.

“When COVID lockdowns hit, it was kinda like landing on Gilligan’s Island,” says FLOOD’s Marco Schindelmann (who adds a parenthetical here: (FYI, The Minnow pulled out of Long Beach Marina)). “We had a choice: wait for rescue, or build huts.”

The result was “soundpedro2020schizophonia : Virtual Breakout During the Outbreak,” where FLOOD invited artists “to reimagine their onsite installation into either a virtual experience or as a virtual performance sample.” Ultimately, nearly 150 works — ranging from live-streamed performances to “Earmaginations” (a collection of silent videos that address aurality in one way or another) to sound poetry (think dada) — “sounded out” in one way or another from June 6, through November 27, 2020.

Despite lamenting not being able to hold the onsite event, FLOOD found a silver lining the forced adaptation.

“Here should be everywhere,” Schindelmann reflects, “and company should include everyone. As a result of reaching out for alternative programming during a time when everyone was retreating in, soundpedro maybe came a little closer to keeping company with everyone, everywhere.”

soundpedro2021 has generally followed the same formula, though with the addition of nice Artist Curated Events (ACE) ranging from “Corona in Verona,” Vincenzo Bellini’s Romeo & Juliet opera I Capuleti e i Montecchi delivered as “a mashup of flash manifestos, soundscapes (incorporating Futurist intonarumori), [and] abstracted video-imaginings […] that reenvisions love as a feeling or a deep sound of interconnectedness pervading the universe,” to satellite in-person events such as Caught in a Wormhole, an audiovisual gallery installation featuring a hand-woven sculpture of silver cotton and stripped space blankets that interacted with its surroundings. Intended to “evoke conversations of climate change, the border wall and space travel, […] video projections play upon the weaving, while the harmonics of the droning sound will play about the modified space and the fluttering and rustling weaving.”

The addition of satellite events to soundpedro programming means that people who might not be able to come out to Angels Gate — whether because of COVID, mobility issues, schedule conflict, or any other reason — can still enjoy an in-person soundpedro experience. As Schindelmann says, “Off-site or satellite events that have the advantage of interacting with local communities and accidental audiences, who might not otherwise attend the Angels Gate onsite event.”

soundpedro2021 wraps up this month with the addition of two events. UnƧightly includes both “a juried selection of sound poems, from classic recitation to speecherly encryption” (premiering November 18).

“Sound poetry commands the ear to listen beyond the hierarchy of language and meaning,” explains Schindelmann, “providing the opportunity for a more personal response,”

Then, on November 22, comes Unsuspecting Trees, an ACE performance by a small ensemble that employs an interactive, animated, ad hoc score of both traditional and nontraditional notation. “Rather than using a static score to convey a fixed intent,” explained event curators Severin Behnen and Hunter Ochs, “this work involves a computer-assisted system that enables the conductor to communicate in real time with performers, moving quickly and effortlessly in a virtual 3D environment to various parts of the score during live performance. The images are projected so that the audience, as well as the performers, can observe the score.”

Despite soundpedro2021’s official end date of November 27, all soundpedro virtual events are archived permanently at soundpedro.org.

“Virtual events are not time-restricted and can last longer than anything onsite,” says Schindelmann. “They also can be more technology-based. Also, the virtual experience is a private rather than a shared public one, in which people can revisit and explore works on their own time, in greater detail.”

Needless to say, FLOOD hopes for a return to the onsite soundpedro event on June 4, 2022. But in any event, the COVID-catalyzed programming additions to soundpedro will be permanent parts of the event going forward.

We learned from 2020 that our quick pivot, and the infrastructure and programming that resulted, held up and could support expansion,” Schindelmann reports. “Also, the virtual events have been a good introduction for non-local, emerging artists, as well as those ‘sound-experimenting’ artists from other disciplines. Importantly, the addition of virtual events also provides access for artists whose participation might otherwise be restricted. […] Programming an onsite soundpedro will resume when nature allows. Once the onsite event comes back into the mix, soundpedro will have grown and improved in spite of adversity.”