Hanna Stairwell (Wait For Me)

Considering how small this space is, and how it's right in the middle of a residential area, it wouldn't be an ideal spot for a traditional concert. In my opinion though, performance doesn't just have to be for a live audience. Especially this year, people have found other innovative ways to perform, like playing on a livestream, or recording a video and publishing it somewhere. Performance is more than just playing live music in front of a group of people.

For the stairwell, I chose a chorus of "Wait For Me" from the musical Hadestown, mostly because it's short, if I'm being honest. I knew people wouldn't necessarily be thrilled by my playing songs in the stairwells, especially in a dorm like Hanna which has old, thin walls. And I was right. You can hear someone in the recording saying something along the lines of "please stop singing," and I don't blame them. I recorded this at night, as inconsiderate as that was, because I was running out of time to get my recordings done. I also predicted that the stairwell would be echoey, and I thought the short, dynamic riffs would bounce nicely off the walls and the stairs. Once again, I was right. I think this space added an ethereal quality to both the singing and the arpeggiated chords. In the few moments before the interruption, the space felt private, like it was just me and the building. The unfortunate part is that clearly, it wasn't.

I'm in a group at Kenyon called "The Stairwells," and we perform acoustic covers of folk songs at concerts twice a year. Despite the name, we don't actually hold concerts in stairwells. Since I thought folk music would sound especially nice in a stairwell, I figured I'd try it out. However, obviously this wouldn't work for a group of 10+ students and an in-person audience. Like I said earlier though, a performance isn't necessarily a concert, and I think something could be done in terms of music in the stairwells. Maybe a Middle Path session at WKCO could be filmed here, or maybe it could just be an experimental space.