The Invitation

The Invitation

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.

Content And Form

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.

IMPACT~ ARTISTIC, INTELLECTUAL, COMMUNAL, CIVIC, SOCIAL:

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.

The Calling

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.

View Itchy-O’s Press Kit  

Itchy-O Logo
Mystery is certainly key to itchy-O, Denver’s own astoundingly large 50-member-plus percussive and electronic musical collective, whose wild, immersive shows completely tear down the walls between performer and audience, stage and dance floor. For example, there are few interviews where the band answers as a collective in the interest of keeping their individual identities secret. But in an era of ego-driven individualism, where even the most intimate personal details of our lives are ripe for peacocking on social media, there’s something refreshingly genuine and artistically rebellious about a commitment to collectivism, community, and anonymity.
Sarah Baranauskas
Marquee Magazine

The Players

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

Ernie Baske Cymbalist

Benjamin Beardsley Comms Agent

Lora Bird Cymbalist

Evan Bowles sound Designer | Polyphonic

David Britton Synthesizer | Noise Division

Megs Burd Lion Dancer

Claire Bellamy Wardrobe

Nicolas Caputo Live Engineer

Daniel Craig Vocoder

Jesse Dawson Sampling | Electronics | Noise Division

Alexandra Edberg Taiko | Polyphonic

Tyler Edmunds Cymbalist | Tenors

Jackson Ellis SpFX | Pyro Technician

Jenny Ferry Lighting Designer

Grayson Fisk Bass Drum | Cymbalist

Jon Frances  Taiko

JD Franklin Polyphonic

Antonio Fry Polyphonic | Cymbals

Evelyn Fugate Kriēchén

Fez Garcia Taiko | Cymbals | Percussion

Bard Griffin Polyphonic

Mike Grimsley Kaos Krüwe

Frank Hammond Taiko

Bailey Harper Kriēchén

Bright Hays Kriēchén

Matt Hoekstra Guitars

Blair Hollow Polyphonic

Chuck Holt Chaos Krüwe | Polyphonic

Amy Jackson Taiko

David Kessner SpFX | High Voltage Technician | Engineering

Micah Kessner Fog Engineer | Chaos Krüwe

Jamil Khera Lighting Designer

Dash Kirkpatrick Wardrobe 

John Knudsen Kriēchén

Jade Lascelles Kriēchén

Susan Lucia Timbales

Jackson Lynn Taiko

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 Lion Dancer

Travis Powell Lighting | Projections

Hanne Schrickx Cymbalist | Bass Drum

Epona Shephard Kriēchén

Erin Smith Lighting Designer

Casper Smith Kaos Krüwe | Larry Dancer

Abrean Sophia Marie Kriēchén

Cal Sorenson Kaos Krüwe 

Aaron Spriggs Theremin

Sara Valentine Kriēchén

Kirsten Vermulen Co-Producer | Art-Director | Synthesizer

Mike Weiblen Lighting | Projection

Stasia White Prima Materia

Eric Winkelmann Kaos Krüwe | Sound 

Bernard Wooten Cymbalist

Bishop Zareh Visual Designer | Projections

Cetan Zephier Lion Dancer | Kaos Krüwe

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