InterBlack Exit

Commissioned by BalletCollective

Instrumentation: 3 violas, 3 cellos

Year composed: 2024

Duration: 22’

The New York City-based ballet company, BalletCollective, does a three-way commission to bring forth a unique production process—they pick a choreographer, the choreographer finds a composer, and the two individuals find a visual artist. The process then reverses: the visual artist makes a piece of art, the composer creates a composition based on the art, and finally, the choreographer choreographs the movement inspired by the musical work."

This is how I met my collaborators, choreographer Houston Thomas and architect Mario Gooden. We started with the phrase—BalletCollective’s theme for the season—“The Entrance is the Exit.” Mario, as the initial artist, created a 39-minute film from scenes in Black cinema where characters either enter or exit rooms. He was also influenced by black holes. This double usage of the word “black” made me consider all the ways the color is used: black coffee, black people, “in the black”… the list goes on. Mario titled his film InterBlack Exit—“inter” alluding to interstellar and intergalactic, words we associate with black holes.

Since black holes are cyclical and the phrase “The Entrance is the Exit” suggested a paradox to me, I composed each of the three movements to repeat in some way. The first repeats with a passacaglia—a form with a repeating bass line. The second repeats in a canon using the pentatonic scale—a set of notes commonly found in early Black American music. The final movement repeats with a rhythmic ostinato and in structure, as it has a ternary (ABA) form. Additionally, the entire work is ternary when considering its use of scales: heptatonic, pentatonic, heptatonic. Lower strings—3 violas, 3 cellos—were chosen to convey a darker sound, to evoke the tone of 'black' as closely as possible. To honor BalletCollective’s seasonal theme, 'black' isn’t just a color or concept; it’s a portal that transforms each entrance into an exit, and each exit into another beginning.