Night at the Library: Building Stories
Step into an immersive after-hours world of stories, with interactive art pop-ups, surprising performances, conversations with diverse storytellers and artists, live music and DJs, drinks, and bites throughout the historic Richard J. Riordan Central Library in Downtown Los Angeles.
dublab is excited to present acoustic performances by Odeya Nini and Anenon that will excavate the natural resonance of the decades old rotunda. tp Dutchkiss will be back with his Record–Degrade–Reproduce–Recall tape loop, recently featured in our Memory in Motion performance with Colloboh and the Getty Research Institute. As the tape loop builds an aural history of the evening, Alex Pelly’s video installation will provide a space for folx to zone out and download the night. In the grand atrium, Noah Klein and Grandfather. will share curated selections that highlight narratives of environmental and ambient music in Southern California, while in the courtyard, Ruben Molina and Sonrisita will spin sounds from Los Angeles’s rich history of Chicano funk and soul music.
The night will also include performances by BodyTraffic, Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs’ Distance Duet presented by LA Phil Insight, Bob Baker Marionette Theater, Yesika Salgado, and Urban Voices Project, among others. Get creative with drawing classes offered by Heavy Manners Library, a photo booth with the Black Image Center, and screen printing with Color Compton. And yes, you can get a library card at the event!
Celebrate the art and magic of storytelling at this first-ever, late-night party presented by Los Angeles institutions invested in the power of storytelling: the Library Foundation of Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Public Library, LAist, and the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art.
About the Performers
Odeya Nini is a Los Angeles based interdisciplinary vocalist and composer. At the locus of her interests are performance practices, gesture, textural harmony, tonal animation, and the illumination of minute sounds, in works spanning chamber music to vocal pieces and collages of musique concrète. Her solo vocal work extends the dimension and expression of the voice and body, creating a sonic and physical panorama of silence to noise and tenderness to grandeur.
Odeya’s work has been presented at venues and festivals across the US and internationally, such as The LA Phil, Merkin Concert Hall, The Broad Museum, and MONA from Los Angeles to Australia, Mongolia, Madagascar and Vietnam. Her solo performance of I See You was included in the The New Yorker’s 10 notable performances of 2021. Odeya is also a member of the 3 time Grammy nominated ensemble Wild Up and is the founder of Free The Voice, leading vocal sound meditations, workshops and retreats exploring the transformative and healing qualities of embodying the voice.
Odeya holds a BFA from the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music and an MFA in composition from California Institute of the Arts.
Anenon is Brian Allen Simon, an artist and the founder of the Non Projects record label. Constantly shedding the non-essential in search of a deep and individualized core, Brian’s music feels potent and refined, yet still raw. His work reaches audiences through speakers and venues where music is given serious consideration. An experimental artist using contemporary tools, Brian mines the intersection of electronics, jazz, improvisation and spiritual atmospherics. He is a native of Los Angeles.
Simon has performed internationally throughout Japan, Europe and North America, sharing the stage with the likes of Morton Subotnick, Julia Holter, Laurel Halo, Baths and many more. He is a distinguished entrant of the 2011 Red Bull Music Academy and has guest lectured at CalArts. Alongside multiple LP’s and EP’s released on Non Projects, Simon has also released songs on Ghostly International, Innovative Leisure and Brownswood. Anenon’s releases have all been subject to critical acclaim, including a spot for Acquiescence as one of XLR8R’s Best Releases of 2012.
tp Dutchkiss (Spencer Hartling) is a Los Angeles based experimental musician and engineer. As a self-taught tape loop artist, Hartling’s work draws inspiration from hisses, hums and buzzes that are woven into irregular, yet tightly knit compositions. Hartling is also a member of the band Harry the Nightgown and owner/operator of Wiggle World a recording studio in Altadena, CA. His LP High Functioning was released in 2024 on Leaving Records.
Alex Pelly is a video artist who has been rooted in the Los Angeles video art community for over a decade. Utilizing multiple generations of video technology, both analog and digital, Pelly creates multi-sensory experiences centered on visceral colors, shapes and sounds in motion. Frequently collaborative with musical accompaniment, her visuals serve as a reflection of and muse to the music simultaneously. A long-standing member of the dublab family, she hosts a monthly show called PELLYVISION, for which she creates live video to accompany sounds from an artist of her choosing.
Grandfather. (2092 Funk Radio Records) is an artist/musician from Altadena, CA whose talent spans a wide range of mediums. As an adolescent, his first experience with art came through a love of drawing inherited from his father. Upon becoming an adult and embracing his undying passion for creativity, Grandfather began exploring different realms of expression; some of those being paint, photography, film and most currently music. Through this exploration Grandfather discovered the parallels between all forms of creativity.
As a teen in the 1960s, Ruben Molina used to take a bus to Hollywood to shop for records, and his passion for vinyl never waned. As a dedicated community historian, Molina interviewed dozens of the artists whose music he loves. Much of Chicano soul music’s recent recognition and renaissance can be traced directly to Molina. He has deejayed with the Southern Soul Spinners crew since 2010.
Coming up as a vinyl collector in her hometown of San Diego, Sonrisita pursued DJing as a means to create space for underground sounds and communities. Now based in Los Angeles, Sonrisita uses her foundation as a record digger to build eclectic sets that weave together both the new and nostalgic. Sonrisita’s played in various cities across the U.S., Mexico and Canada and has opened up for artists like Quantic, Durand Jones and the Indications, and Dam-Funk.Over the years her dedication to music has also extended outside of the booth. Most notably she is working on a book that chronicles the history of the iconic East Side Story compilations based on her original research. She has also been a Researcher on the award-winning music podcast KCRW’s Lost Notes. Sonrisita’s passion and curiosity for music in all of its rich diversity is evident in everything she does.
