Sisza-Arts presents USPUD –

A Moving Painting, set to a musical score by Erik Satie –

re-interpreted using modern studio composition,

electronic sound, and digital film techniques.

 

In 1892, the composer Erik Satie and poet J. P. Contamine de Latour created the original USPUD, a work which they called a “Christian Ballet” – perhaps sarcastically, as it is neither Christian nor Ballet by any stretch of the imagination!

 

In fact, “A Stretch of the Imagination” is a much better way of describing it –

USPUD was surreal 20 years before they had a word for it!

De Latour’s story (if there is one) is somewhat bizarre, and some of the proposed imagery would have kept even Salvador Dali himself awake for nights on end!

 

Satie had broken away from writing mystic music for a local cult just before writing USPUD, and was not in a good mood (if he had any.) It is quite possible that USPUD was a parody of the then-current play “The Temptations of Saint Anthony” by Flaubert, rather than a dig at Christianity itself. It is very likely that Satie &

de Latour were completely hammered by “The Green Fairy” when they wrote it.

 

This Sisza-Arts reimagining of USPUD makes no attempt to follow the original narrative, or any logical sequence, (if there ever was one,) but in keeping with the surreal absinthe flavour of the original, the visuals flow like a moving painting to enhance the soundscape.

 

The appeal of UPSUD (if there is any) lies in Erik Satie’s ethereal score – possibly written for harmonium – to which Sisza-Arts have brought extra-terrestrial grandeur with Electronic Sound. (Satie Purists, fear not! For what is a Synthesizer,

if not a kind of Harmonium with a power cable?)

 

There is also a wonderful anecdote about Satie & de Latour trying to get USPUD performed at the Paris Opera, but that’s another story…

 

Without further ado,

please enjoy Sisza-Arts’ reinterpretation of

USPUD!

(if you can)