Matty Nash, bandleader of the multi-sensory performance troupe
The Mutaytor, says his group’s trademark is its ability to turn
civilians into rock stars. He’s a believer in the romantic idea
that the two are in fact mutually exclusive.
But based on the nature of his indefinable act, a rock star
isn’t just a musician. A rock star can also be a DJ, a fire
performer, a hoop dancer and an aerial stuntman. The Campus Events
Commission’s first Bruin Plaza show of the school year will
showcase this very ideal as The Mutaytor brings a 15-member
performance troupe to campus today at noon.
Nash formed The Mutaytor in 1998 at – appropriately enough – the
Burning Man Festival in the Nevada desert – an annual gathering of
freaks and hippies. Initially it was nothing more than a simple
drum performance, but soon enough The Mutaytor evolved into much
more. Nash was inspired by how theatrical acts like Cirque de
Soleil and Blue Man Group integrated visual and sound elements into
a cohesive whole and quickly came up with elements to integrate
into his own project. He started to look into fire performance,
martial arts and aerial stunts and even found the performers
willing to bring that vision to life. Performers weren’t just found
on stage, however.
"Our show is a very visceral experience – we force the audience
to really participate," Nash said. "It’s impossible to have a
passive experience at a Mutaytor concert. Everyone is moving,
everyone’s smiling, everyone’s dancing. We use anything and
everything at our disposal to make that happen."
The primary tool The Mutaytor uses to invigorate the masses is
also its most simple: by employing 50 green drums at every show, a
primal and primitive drumbeat serves as the group’s backbone. Prior
to The Mutaytor’s formation, Nash drummed in rock bands. A creative
drought finally inspired him to strip the noise down to its most
basic and, some might argue, its most pure form.
"I watched its effects on people and saw how you don’t need to
speak English to understand what we’re doing," Nash said. "This is
music for people all over the world. You don’t have to know how to
dance to understand what you’re doing, your body will move
naturally. And feeling the sonic impact and sound pressure of 50
tribal drums coming at your body, you can feel the music inside of
your living body. It’s beyond hearing and seeing it, you can feel
the pressure."
These effects help explain why The Mutaytor doesn’t just take
its act to festivals like Coachella and Burning Man. The group has
also performed at the Special Olympics, using its unique brand of
entertainment also as a form of music therapy.
"What we’ve done at music therapy concerts is bring out all of
our drums and put them in front of the kids," Nash said. "And then
we play along, we dance along, show them how to play. And this
gives them the opportunity to explore the rhythmic side, and
they’re able to lock in almost right away with the music that we
do. To give people that who don’t have exposure to musical
instruments … is amazing. There’s so much talent and energy
inside of these kids, it’s great to serve as the ignition to unlock
that."
Nash hopes to perform a little musical therapy of his own at
Bruin Plaza today. Though the relatively small-scale setting isn’t
ideal for an all-out Mutaytor show, it doesn’t seem to concern the
group’s leader.
"We try to really consider what the people are like at every
performance, what the space is like, and try to create something
that’d be really perfect for each time," Nash said. "Hence the name
of our group."