Bearings is Ka Baird’s new, evolving solo performance piece. It is equally a work for our times and our office building, with Ka on the move, creating a series of sonic encounters for small audiences, each a shifting arrangement of sounds and sources tailored for one, two, three or four listeners.

Throughout, Bearings asks you to consider your position within a space in flux. Here Ka uses multiple speakers to muddle live and pre-recorded voice, flute and electronics, while location changes and lighting heighten moments of disorientation and resolve. Taken together, the effect may be cathartic, funny, or something else entirely.

Ka performs the 25-minute work five times each night, Friday and Saturday from 6:00 to 9:30 p.m.—first for just one person; then for two people, and again for three; closing with two performances, each for four people. Some soft directives and movement will be suggested for attendees.

Ka Baird (b.1976, Decatur, Ill.) is a performer, composer, and sound designer based in New York City. They are known for their live solo performances that include extended vocal, breath, and microphone techniques, which are combined with electronics and the psychoacoustic interplay of flutes and other woodwinds.

Baird is one of the founding and continuing members of Spires That In The Sunset Rise, formed in Chicago in 2001. Performances include the Unsound Festival, Krakow; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; MoMA PS1, Issue Project Room, and The Kitchen, New York City; Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; TUSK Festival, Newcastle; Incubate, Tilburg; KRAAK, Brussels; Le Guess Who?, Utrecht; and the Festival of Endless Gratitude, Copenhagen. Residencies include Sonoscopia, Porto; Inkonst, Malmo; ESS, Chicago; Pioneer Works and Roulette, New York City. Recent recordings include Hungry Shells with Pekka Airaksinen (RVNG Intl.). In 2020 Baird received an Emergency Grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts.

Ka Baird’s Bearings is part of an occasional series of commissioned performances created for the 10 x 20-foot dimensions of the Lampo office.