American Idol! Local Connection (sort of)

If you watched American Idol last night, you would have seen Lady GaGa perform her hit song, "Poker Face," accompanied on violin by Daniel Bernard Roumain (who also co-arranged the tune for the occasion). If you are totally hip and arty, you might have seen Mr. Roumain on the PICA roster in TBA 2003 and 2005.

Or, perhaps you remember the score he composed to accompany Mary Oslund’s choreography for “60 Seconds,” which Oslund + Co./Dance performed almost exactly four years ago. Mary received an NEA grant for that work, of which Catherine Thomas wrote in the Oregonian:

Set to an original score by the electric violinist Daniel Bernard Roumain, "60 Seconds" is a torrent of overlapping movement filling all corners of the stage. Bodies rushing in retrograde, pushed into ricochet or fast rewind. The eye fixes on little cinematic oddities: a curious, stretched-out walk, spine bent back to extremes; a single arm dangling in the air as if it's leering at the viewer. All this against Roumain's romantic score that sounds steeped in another time: mournful, nostalgic, a languid daydream pushing the edge of hard and loud.”