Tomo Nakayama - Where Is Home : Third Shore (2023)

Tracklist

01. Lobby / Where Is Home
02. Basement / Origin Story
03. Third Floor Landing / The Building
04. Vault / Liminal Space
05. Fire Exit / Mythical Creatures
06. Terrace: Walking, Pt. 1
07. Terrace: Gestures, Pt. 2
08. Terrace: The Architecture, Pt.3
09. Terrace: Waves, Pt. 4
10. Terrace: Third Shore, Pt. 5

This instrumental album was composed and recorded for experimental dance and performance ensemble Malacarne's site-responsive piece, where is home : third shore. In it, four immigrant solo dancers guide the audience through Seattle’s Inscape building. Each tour aims to integrate the performers’ embodied immigration experiences with the Inscape building’s history as an Immigration and Naturalization Center. Now serving as the largest arts and culture enclave in Seattle with workspace for artists and artisans of all disciplines, Inscape pays respect to the history of the former INS Building and the people who made that history, the incredible structure and its bipolar spirit, the triumphs of those who became citizens and the tribulations of those who did not, the joys and the sorrows that manifested the unique nature of the edifice.

Many of the sounds you hear in where is home : third shore were built on field recordings collected within the Inscape building and outside in its surrounding downtown neighborhoods of the International District, SoDo, Rainier Beach, West Seattle, and the Duwamish Riverway. Natural ambient sounds such as waves, birds, whistling, traffic noises and wind interact with synthesizers and percussion instruments built from samples of handrails, pipes, radiators, vaults, concrete walls and stairs, metal fences, and doors both opening and closing. Melodies were formed from half-remembered fragments of Japanese folk songs and movie and television themes from my youth, memories around the time of my own immigration to the United States.

The immigrant artist team was led by Alice Gosti (Italy), and included composer Tomo Nakayama (Japan), lighting designer Chih-Hung Shao (Taiwan), costume designer Ophir El-Boher (Israel) and performers Marceline Nyakirindo (Munyamulenge/Democratic Republic of Congo), Sofiya Kostareva (Ukraine & Russia), Margaret Luxamon Hotchkiss (Thailand), and Prasti Purdum (Indonesia).