Hinck creates new musical language with ‘Work No. 152’

Most people sitting still and quiet in an airport, cafeteria or theater lobby surrounded by strangers’ conversations feel bombarded noise. Pianist and composer Tim Hinck hears angelic music. And he creates multimedia music out of that chatter.

“Gesture. Thought. Flash. Clapping. Tweet. Broadcast. I will use almost anything to create a new musical language,” he says.

When he splashes it across stage, he promises it will play back as a symphony.

See for yourself at Barking Legs Theater, where local actors Madeline Young and Garrett Henson will lead a cast of 18 actors/dancers/musicians performing Hinck’s “Work No. 152” in two performances this weekend, Feb. 19-20.

“Laurie Anderson is one of my influences,” says Hinck, referring to the New York performance artist who told stories via giant puppets, “Rugrats” cartoons, violin solos and guest appearances by poet Allen Ginsberg, LSD advocate Timothy Leary, comedian Andy Kaufman and musician Frank Zappa.

“For projects in my interdisciplinary series, I’m much more inspired by nonmusical artists,” he says. “‘Work No. 152’ is largely inspired by some of the earlier theatrical accomplishments of Robert Wilson (the stage director who has collaborated with Lady Gaga, Lou Reed, Tom Waits, David Byrne, ballet dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov), mixed-media work by Bruce Nauman and the plays of Samuel Beckett. In particular, it has always fascinated me how these artists dealt with musicality in speech.”

His upcoming multimedia play will have dialogue – “sometimes five or more scenes played out simultaneously,” he says – plus visual splendor packed into a small space.

“Work No. 152” experiments with concepts such as making music with light and movement. And yes, the actors will be playing actual characters not mere symbolic figures, although the plot may seem fragmented, more like a musical “speech collage” than a three-act play.

“In past works, however, I’ve allowed audience members to participate in the dialogue onstage via a live-projected twitter feed,” Hinck adds. “This feed would also somewhat direct the movements and sounds of the performers in real time.”

This time, Hinck says, he has “taken lines of text and orchestrated them on paper as if the actor’s voices were instruments in a string quintet.”

Perhaps most important, Hinck says, what unfolds will be funny and entertaining.

The work also features the talents of three New York-based musicians touring as Valerie Kuehne & the Wasps Nests, who also will present their live set both nights. The trio plays a mix of grindcore, cabaret, performance art, punk and neoclassical art song, with a dash of free improvisation. Kuehne, a cellist, is joined by Jeffrey Young on violin and Alex Cohen on drums.