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Lynn Vartan & Francisco Perez
Drs. Francisco Perez and Lynn Vartan are internationally celebrated percussion artists whose performances, recordings, and commissions place them at the forefront of contemporary percussion. As soloists, chamber musicians, and interdisciplinary collaborators, they have toured extensively throughout the United States, Europe, Asia, Central America, China, Mongolia, and Mexico, appearing at major festivals and conferences including PASIC, The Midwest Clinic, and TMEA. Their artistry is documented on internationally distributed recordings, with Vartan featured on releases from ECM New Series, Albany, Bridge, New World, and Yarlung Records, including a Pulitzer Prize finalist album. Perez’s compositions, published by Tapspace Publications, are performed globally and premiered on prominent international stages. Together, they have commissioned and premiered dozens of new works, forging electrifying performances defined by virtuosity, innovation, and global perspective.

Disaster Divergence: Projection Mapping, Soundscapes, and Technological Mediation in Post-Catastrophe Performance

Electronic/Technology
Daytime Showcase ConcertLive

Disaster Divergence is an interdisciplinary performance project exploring the social and sensory aftermath of catastrophic events through the integration of live performance and immersive technologies. The work traces a trajectory from the collective gathering that occurs in moments of crisis to the dispersal and fragmentation of communities as environmental destruction compels migration. Inspired by extreme weather events, particularly hurricanes and wildfires, the project reflects on how catastrophe reshapes place, memory, and human connection. The performance integrates original percussion compositions and live performance by Francisco Perez and Lynn Vartan with layered audio soundscapes, fixed media backing tracks, recorded and manipulated voice, and poetry. These sonic elements interact with live percussion to create evolving environments that evoke warning, displacement, memory, and loss, while blurring the boundary between human presence and mediated sound. Large-scale projection mapping transforms the performance space into a responsive visual environment. Visual materials—ranging from abstracted environmental imagery to data-informed textures—are spatially mapped to align with musical form, rhythmic density, and sonic intensity. The visual system mirrors cycles of convergence and rupture, reinforcing themes of instability, accumulation, and dispersal.

The project also considers accessibility and multisensory perception through interpretive American Sign Language, with limited experimental use of artificial intelligence as part of the interpretive framework. Technology is positioned not as spectacle, but as a means of mediation, translation, and reflection.

Premiered and professionally filmed in April 2024, Disaster Divergence exists as both a live performance and a documented performance artifact, examining how integrated technologies can deepen emotional engagement and expand contemporary performance practices in response to climate-driven catastrophe.