Cornelius Cardew’s Treatise

Interdisciplinary Arts Collective performs a intermedial realization of Cornelius Cardew's 1967 composition Treatise, featuring electro-acoustic music, dance, poetry, and projections.

A seminal work in the development of notational practices in Western experimental music history, Treatise is a graphic musical score that consists entirely of lines, curves, symbols, and white space across 193 pages. Musicians are asked to interpret these graphics into sound.

IAC's performance of Treatise expands the interpretive possibilities of Cardew's musical score into an interdisciplinary performance. Both musicians and dancers translate the notation into sound and movement, accompanied by spoken poetry and projections of the score for the audience to read in real-time alongside the performers. Together, the musicians, dancers, and poets explore what is at stake as a community when we engage with collective decision-making, individual agency, and how sound, bodies, and language can shape and challenge perceptions of reality.

Staged as part of a curatorial double-bill with Sol LeWitt’s Wall Drawing No. 309, on loan to UMOCA from the National Gallery of Art. Join us upstairs at 6:00pm for a talk on the LeWitt led by a UMOCA curator. IAC’s performance begins downstairs at 6:30pm and lasts until 8:30pm. Visitors are welcome to come and go as they please and to explore the UMOCA exhibitions during the performance.