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About Sara

Baltimore City

Sara Dittrich is an interdisciplinary sculpture artist who builds introspective experiences that shift perspective from passive seeing to active looking, from passive hearing to active listening. Using musical thinking, Dittrich illuminates the dynamic and unconscious rhythms of the body and environments. The work is simultaneously gestural and architectonic: gestural in that it evokes the body’s expression in physical movement; architectonic, in that it occurs in a built… more

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Physical Arrangement for String Quartet

In Physical Arrangement for String Quartet, musicians perform a new composition created by Benjamin Buchanan while placed in strenuous/precarious positions throughout the designated space. Using custom fabricated furniture, a cellist plays from a 9 ft. tall chair, a violist lays on their back on a bench, and two violinists lay against the floor.

The music composition employs contemporary and experimental genres, as well as cinematic qualities. Buchanan also enacts a plethora of extended techniques, which are unconventional or non-traditional methods of playing musical instruments used to obtain unusual sounds or timbres.

The composition and choreography amplifies each musician’s body in space and in relation to one another while providing a playful and meditative atmosphere where the norms of musical traditions are defied in an absurd fashion. Over time, the musicians learn to adapt and collaborate from their new postures.

Physical Arrangement of String Quartet was performed as part of the collaborative exhibition Symphony of Gestures, created by Dittrich and Buchanan at the Urban Institute of Contemporary Art within the context of ArtPrize, an international art competition based in Grand Rapids, MI that attracts over 500,000 visitors in a three week period. Symphony of Gestures was an ArtPrize Seven Public Vote Top 5 Finalist in the Time-based category.

Full duration: approx. 10 min.

*Special thanks to Zachary Graft, violin; Jenna Michael, violin; Elizabeth Boyce, viola; Willis Koa, cello; and the Urban Institute For Contemporary Arts
**Footage courtesy of the More Art Upstairs documentary film and director Jody Hassett Sanchez
  • Physical Arrangement for String Quartet (Excerpts)
    A performance choreographed by the artist using 2 violinists, 1 violist, 1 cellist, custom furniture fabricated by artist, and a custom composition by composer Benjamin Buchanan / Full duration 10min. / 2015.
  • Physical Arrangement For String Quartet (Full Version)
    A recorded performance from the Urban Institute for Contemporary Art in Grand Rapids, Michigan from 2015. The custom furniture was fabricated by the artist Sara Dittrich.
  • Physical Arrangement for String Quartet
    Physical Arrangement for String Quartet
    A performance choreographed by the artist using 2 violinists, 1 violist, 1 cellist, custom furniture fabricated by artist, and a custom composition by composer Benjamin Buchanan / Full duration 10min. / 2015.
  • Willis
    Willis
    A performance choreographed by the artist using 2 violinists, 1 violist, 1 cellist, custom furniture fabricated by artist, and a custom composition by composer Benjamin Buchanan / Full duration 10min. / 2015.
  • Zach
    Zach
    A performance choreographed by the artist using 2 violinists, 1 violist, 1 cellist, custom furniture fabricated by artist, and a custom composition by composer Benjamin Buchanan / Full duration 10min. / 2015.
  • Elizabeth
    Elizabeth
    A performance choreographed by the artist using 2 violinists, 1 violist, 1 cellist, custom furniture fabricated by artist, and a custom composition by composer Benjamin Buchanan / Full duration 10min. / 2015.
  • Jenna
    Jenna
    A performance choreographed by the artist using 2 violinists, 1 violist, 1 cellist, custom furniture fabricated by artist, and a custom composition by composer Benjamin Buchanan / Full duration 10min. / 2015.
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