Événement

Marble//Wall Duo Presents Invitation

Invitation is inspired by Vladimir Nabokovs novel Invitation to a Beheading. In Nabokovs work, the young man CIncinnatus C. is sentenced to death by beheading for the imaginary crime of gnostical turpitude" and interned in a chimerical prison as he awaits his execution. In the pages that follow, Cincinnatus struggles to navigate the surreal jail and its absurd inhabitants, all the while reckoning with his looming fate as he ponders and struggles to preserve his humanity in the bizarre and irrational world he occupies.

In five acts, Marble//Wall Duo will explore themes of entrapment, positionality, perseverance, death, and transcendence using excerpts from the novel as focal points. Nabokovs work takes on a particularly poignant meaning in our particular city and context: The struggle to maintain personhood and efficacy at the mercy of juggernaut institutions where rules and engagements are inscribed and dispelled as quickly as they came into being echoes the social, economic, and political struggles that have recently entered the forefront in St Louis, and indeed, across the country.

******************

Marble//Wall Duo is an improvisational collaboration between pianist + violinist Nika Marble and percussionist Louis Wall.

Nika Marble is a pianist and composer residing in St. Louis, MO. She is a classically trained pianist, and currently studies under Daniel Schene at Webster University. She earned her Masters degree in Russian and Slavonic studies at the University of Missouri, Columbia, and studied music, art history, and studio art in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Louis Wall is a St. Louis-based percussionist and arranger who has worked with various groups including The Frizbees, 18AC and Jumbling Towers. Frequent collaborators with Damon Davis, Nika Marble, Jeremy Kannapell, Stan Chisolm and Chloe Feoranzo. Louis is the program director and producer for The Texas Room non-profit music recording project.