A bucket list of possibilities in ‘Dis/Embodied’

New Music New College program runs Nov. 17-19

The score for Roger Marsh’s “Dum,” “a vocal theater piece for one performer,” includes citations for texts by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Christina Rossetti, John Donne, Dante and Rupert Brooke, and “also, throughout, the Lord’s Prayer.” There’s also a diagram of the performer’s setup, on an 8-by-4-foot platform with a bucket on a stool, a chair, a lectern, a second bucket and a tam tam.
Among the props are “a saucepan lid wth a good ringing quality,” a small “tinkly” bell to be attached to one of the buckets by a string, and the contents of one bucket: “heavy metal objects, e.g. short lengths of iron piping.”
The score’s directions include “cover eyes,” “uncover eyes” and stage whisper, gutterals, fast-panting and exhalations.
“It is a little weird,” said Stephen Miles, one of three performers who will present “Dis/Embodied,” a concert of music made with the body ”(and without the body),” according to the program for the second in the five-concert New Music New College 2017-2018 series.