Trialogues:

Pierre Joris

Nicole Peyrafitte

Michael Bisio

Trialogues are improvised collaborative exchanges inside a set time limit between 3 protagonists unconditionally dedicated to their chosen mode of expression: Joris to his nomadic poetry in its wandering, rhizomatic explorations; Peyrafitte to her nourishing, sensual, campy and scintillating multi-layered vocal range & texts & live painting; Bisio to the extraordinary tonal beauty and intensity of the very personal musical language of his double bass. This ongoing collaboration started in 2009 & was featured at the Vision Festival XV.

Les “Trialogues” sont des échanges multimédia improvisés en une limite de temps donnée par trois protagonistes inconditionnellement dévoués à leurs modes d’expression choisis: Joris à sa poésie nomade et ses errances dans l’antre des entre-langues; Peyrafitte à son éventail — langagier et visuel — vocal mille-feuilles à la fois nourrissant, sensuel, campy et éblouissant; Bisio à l’extraordinairement intense et belle tonalité dans l’expression musicale de sa double basse. “Trialogues” se produit en collaboration continue depuis 2009. Le trio fut sélectionné pour le New York Vision Festival XV.

“Spoken-word and multilingual vocalizations engage in masterful swordplay with sonic bass explorations” Gregg Haymes – Times Union

Extracts from the Vision Festival XV:
Arrivé
Poem by Pierre Joris

Noir Plaisir / Black Pleasure
Poem by Nicole Peyrafitte (translated w/ P. Joris)

Altars of Light / Autels de Lumières
Poem by Pierre Joris (translated by Eric Sarner)
Recorded by Stephen Schmidt

BIOS:

Pierre Joris has moved between the US, Great Britain, North Africa, France & Luxembourg for close to half a century. He has published over 40 books of poetry, essays and translations, most recently Canto Diurno #4: The Tang Extending from the Blade, an Ahadada ebook. 2010. In 2007 & 2008 he published Aljibar and Aljibar II (poems, a bilingual edition with French translation by Eric Sarner, Editions PHI, Luxembourg). Justifying the Margins: Essays 1990-2006 came out in 2009 from SALT in the UK. His 2007 publications are the CD Routes, not Roots (with Munir Beken, oud; Mike Bisio, bass; Ben Chadabe, percussion; & Mitch Elrod, guitar) issued by Ta’wil Productions and Meditations on the Stations of Mansour Al-Hallaj 1-21. Translations include Paul Celan: Selections and 4×1: Work by Tristan Tzara, Rainer Maria Rilke, Jean-Pierre Duprey & Habib Tengour translated by Pierre Joris. With Jerome Rothenberg he edited Poems for the Millennium, vol. 1 & 2: The University of California Book of Modern & Postmodern Poetry. He has published 3 further volumes of Paul Celan translations: Breathturn, Threadsuns and Lightduress (which received the 2005 PEN Poetry Translation Award) and a range of translationsinto French, including books by Jack Kerouac. Julian Beck, Allen Ginsberg & Sam Shepard. Working with Nicole Peyrafitte has allowed Joris to create a range of collaborative performances such as dePLACEments, Manifesto&a, Sumericabachbones, and many others.

David Gitin wrote: Pierre Joris’ CD, ROUTES, NOT ROOTS, is a celebration of mind, wonderful naming, and spinning between those points, weaving space(s) in exquisite motion, his own fine ear accompanied sensitively by oud and percussion (as well as guitar and voice). I’m only pointing to it; the pleasures of his unique poetry await. Highly recommended CD.

Jerome Rothenberg on Pierre Joris: Joris is a genuine Luxembourgian Yankee, who has invaded the American language, not to plunder but to enrich us with his presence. The scope of the work is large, the thrust is synthesizing, the idiom particular and rich. A renard-coyote, his accomplishment is there for all of us to see and hear: www.pierrejoris.com

Nicole Peyrafitte is a Pyrenean-born multidisciplinary artist. While a long time resident of New York, her work in painting, action painting, writing, film and video, music, and cooking draws upon her eclectic history and the experiences of shaping identity across two continents and four languages.

Recent works include the five-week multi-tier exhibition & live performance “Peyrafitte /Joris: Domopoetic Works” at Simoncini Gallery, Luxembourg, featuring her longtime collaboration with poet and translator Pierre Joris, and Things Fall Where They Lie (2018) the documentary feature film she directed. In addition to books (Bi-Valve 2013 & Landsc0pes forthcoming June 2018) chapbooks, and translations, she has authored the CDs Whisk, Don’t Churn with Michael Bisio and The Bi-Continental Chowder.

Peyrafitte’s work has been presented and/or performed in a range of venues. In New York, these include The Poetry Project, Bowery Poetry Club, Bard College, Borough of Manhattan Community College, The Vision Festival, and Poets House. National venues include San Francisco State University, University of California San Diego, the Walker Art Institute, Boise State University & Naropa University as artist/teacher in residence. Internationally, the Birbeck college, University of London, the University of Edinburgh, Université de Bordeaux, Festival les Voix de La Méditerranée in Sète, Festival de San Luis Potosi (Mexico), and Festival International de la Lettras, Durango (Mexico) are some of the venues that have showcased her performances. Full CV click here.

“Nicole Peyrafitte is a brilliant and most original performer. Her vocalizations, her song, her gestures are provocative: both stunningly beautiful and powerfully unnerving at times. She is the chthonic goddess come to tempt you, scare you, transform you. She is in the poetic lineage of Greek tragedy, Café Voltaire antics, of dada and surrealist play but with a post-modern, hip sensibility. I am transfixed when she’s on stage.” Anne Waldman Poet/Performer.

For more info and video: www.nicolepeyrafitte.com

Michael Bisio: Bassist-composer Michael Bisio has been called a poet, a wonder and one of the most virtuosic and imaginative performers on the double bass. Nat Chinen writes in The New York Times: “The physicality of Mr. Bisio’s bass playing puts him in touch with numerous predecessors in the avant-garde, but his expressive touch is distinctive.” He has over a hundred recordings in his discography, two dozen as leader or co-leader. JazzTimes describes Michael as a performer who resonates with intelligence, emotional depth and probing virtuosity.” He has been recognized with nine project grants from various arts organizations, plus the prestigious Artist Trust Fellowship. In 2017 Michael was Master Artist in Residence at The Atlantic Center for the Arts and is instructor of bass at Bennington College. Michael has collaborated with Nicole Peyrafitte since 2004 & has been a full time member of the Matthew Shipp Trio since 2009.

Paul DeBarros in Signal to Noise notes:
“For years free improvisers have explored the tactile aspect of performance, in which the nature of the encounter between the player and the instrument becomes the subject of the music itself. Bisio is one of the few musicians that has managed to meld this high-concept sense of physicality with the soulful charge of jazz. His fiddle-high, scraped overtones create a tangled choir that is impossible to resist; his expressiveness with the bow is unmatched. Having whirled the listener into a transportive state, he gently shows them the way out…”