"Remnants & Rudiments"
Saturday April 3 • 2021
This late afternoon into dusk performance at the Bulb's legendary amphitheater featured poet Maw Shein Win and musicians Dan Plonsey and Thomas Scandura. The poetry was written during the pandemic, reflecting on the fractured nature of thoughts and random revelations during lockdown. The music is a mixture of composition and improvisation based on the 13 Essential Drum Rudiments.
See artist bios and preliminary documentation below.
Maw Shein Win
is a poet, editor, and educator who lives and teaches in the Bay Area. Her poetry chapbooks are “Ruins of a glittering palace“ (SPA/Commonwealth Projects) and “Score and Bone“ (Nomadic Press). “Invisible Gifts: Poems“ was published by Manic D Press in 2018.
She was a 2019 Visiting Scholar in the Department of English at UC Berkeley. Win is the first poet laureate of El Cerrito, California (2016 - 2018).
Her full-length poetry collection is “Storage Unit for the Spirit House“ (Omnidawn, 2020), longlisted for the 2021 PEN America Open Book Award.
She often collaborates with visual artists, musicians, and other writers and is a Spring 2021 ARC Poetry Fellow at UC Berkeley.
Dan Plonsey
was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and raised in Cleveland Heights. He has lived in California for 24 years, and in El Cerrito for 14.
Since 1978, Plonsey has written hundreds of works for large and small ensembles. He has received commissions from: The Jewish Music Festival (Berkeley), Dandelion DanceTheater (Oakland), Real Time Operai (New Hampshire), the Bang on a Can People's Commissioning Fund (New York), Theatre of Yugen (San Francisco), the Museum of Children's Art (Oakland), Milkbar International Film Festival (Oakland), the Berkeley Symphony Children's Concert Series, and New Music Works (Santa Cruz).
Most of Plonsey's work has been written without commission, deadline, or any significant outside influence for Daniel Popsicle, his 10-20 person ensemble of unfixed instrumentation.
Thomas Scandura
is a noise rock drummer/improviser based in Oakland,California. He has toured both nationally and internationally and performed on 45 recordings. Thomas is a founding member of the post-punk-no fi-noise-rock group "The Molecules", the absurdist Italian rock band "Spezza Rotto", and the trio "Dirty Patina".
His current projects include “PG13,“ “The Scope,“ and “Surplus 1980.“ He has also participated in Bill Wolter's music for Amy Lewis's dance performance “Hate Log,“ Tom Djll's political musical theater piece “Mockracy,“ Sperry Fest, Polly Moller's “Flip Quartet,“ and the Bay Area's annual Skronk-a-thon BBQ.
Other Bay Area bands Thomas has played in include GrndNtl Brnds, Vacuum Tree Head, Moe!Kestra!, Rev.99, Pornorchestra, Stritch, Saint of Killers, John Shiurba's 5x5, and Witches & Devils. Over the last 20+ years, he has performed local live improvisations with Liz Albee, Myles Boisen, Steve Buchanan, Ralph Carney, George Cremaschi, Ernesto Diaz-Infante, Carla Kihlstedt, Elliot Levin, Fred Longberg-Holm, 99 Hooker, Tom Nunn, Dan Plonsey, Gino Robair, Elliot Sharp, Tamio Shiraishi, John Shiurba, Dave Slusser, Moe Staiano, and Jack Wright among many others. While traveling Thomas has also performed with Jac Berrocal, Shelly Hirsh, Marc Ribot, Tatsuya Yoshida, and Otomo Yoshihide.