Flameworker Carrie Fertig’s Torcher Chamber Arkestra to make second U.K. appearance in September

Reprising its 2012 performance at the International Festival of Glass in Stourbridge, England, the collaborative multi-media group Torcher Chamber Arkestra that combines flameworked glass, fire, and percussion-heavy musical performance is being brought back to England for another audience-interactive, glass-centric appearance. On September 2nd and 3rd, 2016, the Birmingham arts center known as mac birmingham will be filled with the sights, sounds, and spectacle that is an Arkestra performance in an event put on by Craftspace Curates, a craft-development organization that works "to push boundaries and perceptions of crafts practice, presentation and learning" through programmes of touring exhibitions, research, and participatory projects. "Pushing boundaries" is certainly something that the Arkestra, currently featuring artist Carrie Fertig, composer Alistair MacDonald, and percussionist Stu Brown, is intimately familiar with. Best described as an interdisciplinary collaborative performance group, the Arkestra defies traditional categorization by merging craft production, performance, and audience participation to create musical soundscapes produced through the manipulation of glass. 

Founded by Fertig, the group inherits its interdisciplinary nature from the artist's practice, which uses invisible and transparent materials to evoke transformative experiences that "address emotional, spiritual, and physical states and thresholds." Fertig invents and fabricates the group's instruments, for which Alistair MacDonald has composed music, from borosilicate glass. MacDonald also uses the instruments to create electronic and digitally manipulated compositions, which are played during the performance. The instruments are also played live, but perhaps more interesting is the fact that they are manufactured live, as Fertig, standing center stage behind a flame, produces new ones for Brown and MacDonald to use throughout the performance. This aspect of Fertig's performances collapses process and performance, bringing craft practice into the arena of performance art.

Previous performances have also played with audience participation, and this upcoming iteration is no different. In 2012, Fertig finished the performance by having audience members contribute to a glass dress that she and her team were fabricating during the performance on a moving dancer. This time, in a move reminiscent of the promenade theatre style of Punchdrunk's infamous Sleep No More, the audience is not seated during the 90-minute performance, but free to move about the performers in order to experience the performance from different perspectives. After the performance, the audience is invited to play the transparent, delicate-looking instruments and interact with the performers. 

 The mutable, interdisciplinary nature of the group's output is fostered by its rotating roster of contributors: a mix of musicians, flameworkers, composers, academics, and artists. Indeed, though Fertig, MacDonald, and Brown have only played as Torcher Chamber Arkestra twice, Fertig has led several similar performances, often with MacDonald as well, including a 2014 series called Flames and Frequencies performed as part of Fertig's residence at RIT and at various European museums. 

Flames & Frequencies performance for glass percussion and fire from Carrie Fertig on Vimeo.

Torcher Chamber Arkestra is an innovative project that, as Fertig herself put it, combines the "performance potential of flameworking" with music, design, and fabrication to create a collaborative work of performance art that uses both practice and product to create an otherworldly aural and visual experience for the viewer. 

IF YOU GO: