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lavinia lost her rhythmicon // to a haitian hippocratic con

from man and the echo by Chris Rainier

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about

"...the great afro-american dancer, Lavinia Williams, late star of the N*gro Ballet of New York, second wife of Professor Leon Theremin, to whom the scientist has created his second-generation virtual drum-set, the advanced Rhythmicon. She was born in Haiti and moved with her family to the States in her early childhood. She was already a rising star of the emerging modern black dance-culture, when she married the inventor in 1937, in New York City. Shortly after their marriage Professor Theremin was kidnapped by Russian agents. He was smuggled back to the Soviet Union, where he was sent to the Gulag, for 13 years. He was not allowed to contact his American wife, even after his release from the labor camp.

Lavinia Williams spent 30 years trying to find her husband, to no avail. After giving up her search in the 1970's, she moved back to Haiti and started a dance school on the island. She took one of the Professor's main inventions, the Rhythmicon with her. It was a further developed version of the drum machine, with the same name, which the inventor constructed in 1930, at the request of composer Henry Cowell. Lavinia's custom-made electronic device provided a set of virtual drums. The drummers played on them by hitting certain spots [each assigned to a different drum sound] in the air, within the vicinity of the equipment's sensors. She had local drummers playing the invisible drums, during her dance classes.

She was respected across the island as the embodiment of Ezili [Erzulie], the female spirit of love in the voudoun religion. Lavinia Williams's dance-school soon became a center of resistance against the Duvalier dictatorship, which ruled Haiti in that time. The dictator, Francois 'Papa Doc' Duvalier, was a practicing voodoo magician. Always dressing in black, wearing a black top hat Papa Doc was impersonating Baron Samedi, the Death demon in the voudoun pantheon, to make himself feared by the superstitious masses. He had Lavinia Williams poisoned.

After Lavinia's death, the dictator had the invisible drums brought over to his palace, where he used the machine during his bloody voodoo orgies. His son, Jean-Claude 'Baby Doc' Duvalier inherited the instrument, after his murderous father died. When the Duvaliers fell from power, Baby Doc had to escape from the island, on an American war plane. He took two things with him to cushion his exile: the Haitian state treasure and the Rhythmicon. He took up residence in the French Riviera, where he lives in luxury ever since. Baby Doc rarely leaves his fortified villa. He spends most of his time playing on the virtual drums, in the voodoo temple, deep beneath his mansion, in the armoured cellar."

credits

from man and the echo, released October 14, 2014

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Chris Rainier London, UK

some kind of folk music. various microtonal guitars, weissenborn [a hollowneck lap steel, often with preparations]…also occasional singing, and other instrumental odds and ends.

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