With a driving drum corps battery, taiko drummers, an arsenal of electronics including synthesizers, theremin, vocoders, and other custom-made sonic devices, itchy-O completely engulfs an audience from every angle in an electric bog of music, ephemera, and spectacle. Lauded as one of today’s most unique musical performance experiences, the group disrupts traditional performance protocols with a form of chaos that unifies spectators and audiences. Itchy-O performances awaken the senses, test assumptions, and create an opening for new experiences where identity and boundaries surrender and disband.
Itchy-O creates transcendent musical experiences by blending iconographies in an effort to provide a distinctive offering. The resulting chaos dissolves familiarities, awakens possibilities, and employs the true nature and power of hive-minded ceremony. With a performance troupe of over 50+ musicians, dancers, puppeteers, and special effects experts, itchy-O creates a space where the performer and audience co-create an ecstatic artistic experience. The percussive rhythms of the drum battery and taiko drums shake all tenants of tradition and intermingle with unique custom-crafted electronic devices, providing a primal-futuristic spiritual immersion.
Societies today largely choose what to see, hear, and believe. Our lives are carefully curated and programmed by ourselves and outside influences. Itchy-O challenges that hierarchy of choice and control by inserting its one-of-a-kind creative chaos. We invite our audiences to embrace mystery by passing between knowing and unknowing, self and other. Performances create a temporary community of co-creators who surrender control as observers to become a part of manifesting a shared artistic experience.
RADICAL, TRANSCENDENTAL, MUSICAL-PERFORMANCE, INCLUSION
Itchy-O aspires to create transcendent spiritual experiences with performances that confound the senses and disorient perceptions of place, time, order, reason and categorical identity. We invite our audiences to embrace mystery and join us in passing between knowing, unknowing, self and other.
Itchy-O offerings are not without risk. The symbols we wield are ancient, abstract, and sometimes volatile – capable of stirring sleeping currents in the body, mind, and memory alike. Those who carry unseen complexities – emotional, ancestral, or otherwise – may encounter this work more acutely. Our intention is never to harm but to quiet ego and bring focus to archetype. While no rite can be universally safe, we remain committed to crafting spaces where mystery, inquiry, and transformation can unfold deliberately, but never carelessly.
Since 2009, this Colorado-based meta-mystical ensemble has been thrilling audiences across the U.S. and beyond.
A batterie of fourteen-plus power percussionists comprises the spine of the fifty-plus strong performance troupe whose orchestral arsenal of avant-instrumentation runs the gamut from guitars, gamelan, and synths to less conventional instruments including theremin and vocoders in concert with more experimental trance-inducing appurtenances.
Itchy-O dismantles assumptions of traditional performance models to break down the barriers between audience and experience, administering a blast of ceremonial chaos;
baptizing the audience—body, mind, and collective soul—in a spectacular, pan-sensorial sea of music, mystery, and transcendental spiritual spectacle.
Ethan Alexander Bass Guitar
Tyler Aldridge Sound Designer | Synthesizer | Noise Division
Sarah Ayako Taiko
Bryan Aquino Snare
Scott Allen Banning Producer | Director | Roto-Toms
Nicole Banowetz Inflatable Arts | Kaos Krüwe
Ernie Baske Cymbalist
Benjamin Beardsley Comms Agent
Alex Bielawski Wardrobe
Lora Bird Cymbalist
Alexa Borthwick Polyphonic
Geoff Brent Polyphonic
David Britton Synthesizer | Noise Division
Megs Burd Galethog
Claire Bellamy Wardrobe
Nicolas Caputo Live Engineer
Daniel Craig Vocoder
Jesse Dawson Sampling | Electronics | Noise Division
Amica Dooley Cymbalist
Alexzandra Edberg Taiko
Tyler Edmunds Cymbalist | Tenors
James Egan Polyphonic
Jackson Ellis SpFX | Pyro Technician
Jenny Ferry Lighting Designer
Grayson Fiske Bass Drum | Cymbalist
Joshua Forbes SPFX | Audio
Jon Frances Taiko
JD Franklin Polyphonic
Antonio Fry Timbales | Cymbals
Evelyn Fugate Kriēchén
Fez Garcia Taiko | Cymbals | Percussion
Bard Griffin Theremin | Polyphonic
Mike Grimsley Kaos Krüwe
Frank Hammond Taiko
Bailey Harper Kriēchén
Bright Hays Kriēchén
Matt Hoekstra Strings
Blair Hollow Polyphonic
Chuck Holt Kaos Krüwe | Polyphonic
Amy Jackson Taiko
Breegan Kearney Kriēchén
David Kessner Lighting | SpFX | High Voltage Technician | Engineering
Micah Kessner Fog Engineer | Kaos Krüwe
Jamil Khera Lighting Designer
Dash Kirkpatrick Wardrobe
John Knudsen Kriēchén
Jade Lascelles Kriēchén
Susan Lucia Timbales
Cory Magamoll Snare
Henri Francois Mamet Kaos Krüwe
Mark Moffett SpFX | Pyro Technician
James Nelson Strings
Jake O’Neal Quint Tenor
Michael Patterson Audio Director
David Poore Galethog
Travis Powell Lighting | Projections
Ally Roeder Cymbalist
Hanne Schrickx Cymbalist | Bass Drum
Epona Shephard Kriēchén
Erin Smith Lighting Designer
Casper Smith Kaos Krüwe | Galethog
Abrean Sophia Marie Kriēchén
Cal Sorenson Kaos Krüwe
Aaron Spriggs Theremin
Kenny Storms Sound Designer | Noise Division
Sara Valentine Kriēchén
Kirsten Vermulen Co-Producer | Art-Director | Synthesizer
Mike Weiblen Lighting | Projection
Stasia White Prima Materia
Eric Winkelmann SPFX | Kaos Krüwe | Sound
Bernard Wooten Cymbalist
Bishop Zareh Visual Designer | Projections
Cetan Zephier Kaos Krüwe | Galethog
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