Comeback of the ''Kid''
By Alice Sperling

Concert
Kid’s Incredible Adventure
(Or the Journey of the Soul),
A Classical Ethnic Rock Musical-Morality Play
Tim Hazell and Ken Bichel
Fri–Saturday, Jul 10–11, 7pm
St. Paul's Church
Cardo 6
200/150/100 pesos
On sale at the church starting June 29
152-0387

First performed March 27 at Teatro Ángela Peralta, Kid’s Incredible Adventure (Or the Journey of the Soul), A Classical Ethnic Rock Musical-Morality Play is being reprised. If you missed it the first time around, this is your opportunity to be wowed by the innovation of musicians/composers Ken Bichel and Tim Hazell.

A modern day Hair, this ambitious original work, a true collaboration between these two talented men, was a driven labor of love. How else to explain the months of hard work and planning behind the piece?

I sat down with the authors to explore the obsession/motivation behind this monumental oeuvre. It didn’t take much to get these guys off and running. They are as verbal as they are musical.

Alice Sperling: How did this collaboration come about?

Ken Bichel: This piece evolved out of mutual respect for each other’s work. It was exciting and somewhat dangerous to put ourselves into a place where we had never gone—but also irresistible.

Tim Hazell: I had heard about Ken’s work and background. I got to know him informally as a result of a review that he wrote about a previous collaboration and world premiere, A Forest of Americas. I also saw him perform a concert for solo piano about two years ago, and was blown away. I felt that Ken could bring enormous interdisciplinary resources to a new work to follow Forest without duplicating the unique nature of that piece.

KB: Tim had this bizarre idea that we should try a fusion of Mesoamerican instruments and state-of-the art electronic music synthesizers. I was reticent, having given 70 percent of my creative life to these latter-day vacuum cleaners. I was an early developer, having worked with the inventor Robert Moog. Tim plied me with amazing food and drink (he’s a gourmet chef, as well as a master of about 152 other classical métiers) and convinced me to at least give it a try.

I was shocked to discover the similarities. Wind, for example. Tim does it with instruments of breath; I do it electronically. The indigenous people called forth the spirits of the Earth; I like to think the synth sounds are evoking the energies of the other spheres as well.

TH: Ancient instruments have holistic, analogical characteristics. They are unique, each tuned and made by hand. They open up tremendous possibilities for synthesis with today’s cutting-edge digital technology. Modern innovations allow instruments to breathe, mutter and sag, as well as be tuneful—a palette of millions of sound bite possibilities.

AS: What about Kid’s Incredible Adventure? How did that emerge from this rather primordial partnership?

KB: Kid is another story altogether. I heard a CD of Tim’s songs that he recorded with Ken Basman and was very taken with them. As we assembled a running order for the material, a theme began to emerge—quietly at first; ultimately bellowing and demanding recognition. Kid insisted on being born. I knew we needed a script, so I wrote one. (P.S. I don’t normally do that.)

TH: A CD of songs I had written during various periods over the years gave us the basis for a temporary grid. The concept at that point was very free. Kid soon outstripped the creators and ran ahead through uncharted territory.

AS: Ken, you’ve been involved in many collaborations in your long career in New York and abroad. What was special about this creative collaboration?

KB: Tim is an absolute Wunderkind; the ultimate Renaissance Man. He’s an academic, a scholar, a professor, a master painter, an author and performer. He’s also an historian, an authority on Mesoamerican music and culture, an interdisciplinary lecturer, a gourmand, and God only knows what else. I don’t think he ever sleeps.

Most importantly, Tim is absolutely ego-free. The art is everything. I don’t think we’ve ever had a creative disagreement, except when, after a session, where I’d think everything sucked beyond redemption and nothing was accomplished, I’d inevitably get an email from Tim attesting to the amazing progress made that day. He’s the “Energizer Bunny” of creativity and positivism.

AS: And Tim; what was unique about this particular collaboration for you?

TH: Ken is a master musician and is imbued with a keenly honed sense of what a true state of being in life means. He is what he does, which means that, for me, he has reached a state of knowing beyond needing.

AS: What can we expect from these next performances?

KB: More adventures! More chapters in Kid’s misguided, bumbling journey toward freedom and contentment. We’ve expanded the script, added a new character and added a woman to the production. We were a little heavily weighted toward testosterone.

TH: We are bringing in aspects of theater that involve character development. Wendy Bichel will also take part in the upcoming version as the narrator, cosmic ringmaster, etc., supplying her own considerable talents and energies to the new and vitamin-enriched Kid #2.

AS: So who is this “Kid”?

KB: Kid is an archetype: a mythical representation of each of us as we seek the meaning in our lives and the source of our being.

TH: Kid is Ken Bichel, Kid is myself, and Kid” represents a mythical vehicle—a kind of actor in between us and energies that come at us in all directions.

AS: What’s next for this production?

KB: A Spanish translation—a Mexican troupe and an expanded two-act full-blown theatrical version are already on the boards. Following, an opening on Broadway, a Tony, a cast album and DVD in seven languages and 15 international touring companies, generating huge sums of money for worthy causes…maybe.

TH: The sky’s the limit. I’m working with a guy who is just as intent as I am to make Kid into a truly international work of art, a success both commercially and aesthetically. The future is going to be exciting, filled with chills and spills.