The Voice from the Sea
Installation/Performance at Oberlin Dance Collective Performance Gallery, San Francisco, 1977

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Tom Gehrig's "The Voice from the Sea" (Oberlin Dance Collective Performance Gallery, 1977) was both an installation and a live performance piece. Materials Gehrig used in this piece included a stone suspended by string, a bucket full of gravel, a painting suspended at an angle, a stick with small a battery-operated light attached to it, and a clarinet mounted on bent steel framework.

Accompanying Gehrig was composer Paul Robinson, who played  a four-note sequence as Gehrig entered the space carrying the bucket of gravel and the stick with light. The soundtrack was a slow crescendo of a chord on Moog synthesizer, laying a continuous bed of sound that gradually got louder and louder.

Gehrig first launched the rock so it would swing back and forth. He then proceeded to pour the gravel out into a circle while the rock was swinging - having to avoid being struck. Once that task was completed, Gehrig gathered the stones up once again and placed them back into the bucket. He then carried the bucket over to the clarinet and blew as loudly as he could while holding the heavy bucketful of gravel. Robinson continues to play throughout the entire 25 minute performance. In closing, Gehrig takes the stick with light, bucket of gravel and leaves the space.

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