Landon Caldwell - Good Work

Landon Caldwell brings Good Work to The Contemporary Art Museum of Indianapolis (CAMi) on Friday, October 23, and Saturday, October 24. It's a five-act operetta with music by Rob Funkhouser, performed by an ensemble that includes Mark Tester, Jess Dunn, Hirotaka Inuzuka, Luke Garrigus, Jesse Lee, Eric Salazar, Funkhouser, and Caldwell himself.

The framework draws on Myrrdin Wylt, the Welsh folklore figure who later inspired Merlin of Arthurian legend. From there, it moves through five acts of voice, movement, ensemble and video, built from family letters, medieval Welsh prophecy poetry, regional folklores and local oral history. It asks what it means to dissolve into a place and to find oneself in service to others. Caldwell describes it as a work of abstract regionalism, with anonymized roles and objects standing in for characters, and a score that resists a fixed telling—improvised and reordered at each performance.

Caldwell is an Indianapolis-based multidisciplinary artist and composer who works with multi-channel installation, film and video, writing, improvisation, radio art and performance to explore how people encounter sound in everyday life and how regional identity is shaped by it. Funkhouser is a recurring collaborator, also behind the community project Sonic Potluck and the 48-channel sound sculpture Sound Field. The production is funded by the Indianapolis Creative Risk Fund, a program of the Herbert Simon Family Foundation.

There are two performances at CAMi's Frank & Katrina Basile Performing Arts & Event Hall, 1125 Cruft St. The first is Friday, October 23, with doors at 7 PM and the performance at 8 PM. The second is Saturday, October 24, with doors at 1 PM and the performance at 2 PM. Tickets are $20.