Background Music: A Participatory Performance & Hike

Background Music: A participatory performance and hike at Headlands Center for the Arts
Location: Meet in The Commons at Headlands Center for the Arts, 944 Simmonds Road, Sausalito, CA.
Sunday, April 13 | 11am-12pm.
Background Music (2024) is a roving, participatory performance that invites attendees to use a descriptive score by Raven Chacon and a portable speaker to amplify the Marin Headlands’ sonic landscape. Participants should be prepared to hike Headlands’ trails (no more than 2 miles of walking) and collaborate with each other. The performance will last approximately one hour.
Background Music is followed by , a performance by electric guitarist Zachary James Watkins at 1pm also composed by Chacon. Both performances are co-presented by Slash and Headlands in conjunction with , the group exhibition at Slash curated by Diego Villalobos featuring work by Chacon. Background Music and Compass are hosted during Headlands’ Spring 2025 Open House (12–5PM)--the event features additional programming, including artist open studios, lunch for purchase, and readings.
This event is generously supported by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.
Artist Bio
Raven Chacon is a composer, performer, and visual artist who creates videos, prints, photographs, and installations that bring sonic experimentation into the gallery. Score-based creation is fundamental to his practice, encouraging generous forms of collaboration among performers and audiences, sights of significance, nonhuman actors, found sounds, and natural elements. In this way, he connects Diné (Navajo) worldviews and relationship models with Western classical, avant-garde, and art-music traditions. Chacon was born in Fort Defiance, Arizona within the Navajo Nation and lives and works in Hudson, NY.
Photo: Performance of Raven Chacon’s Background Music, 2024, as part of Gather Listen Hear, 2024. Janine Windolph pictured. Commissioned by Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. Photo by Rita Taylor.

Host or Publisher Headlands Center for the Arts