‘CROSSFIRE’ SHOT FROM 3 BARRELS

For composer David Felder, music concerts strike the wrong chord.

“I feel the concert-giving experience is stale,” he said in a telephone interview from Buffalo. Felder, a member of the compositional faculty of the State University of New York at Buffalo and co-director of the North American New Music Festival, feels a need for cross-pollination in the arts.

“There’s a certain fracturing of artists. Painters don’t talk to composers, and composers are ill-prepared for painting. We study the technical areas, but the problem has to do with vocabulary--finding a common language we can all understand.

“I think working together (in an interdisciplinary environment) helps all the arts. I enjoy the stimulation when you find good collaborators.”

When Felder was working on his doctorate at UC San Diego (he earned his degree in 1983), he linked up with video artist David Stout and choreographer Mary Jan Eisenberg.

The results of trio’s multidisciplinary collaboration, “Crossfire,” will premiere at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday at the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art’s Sherwood Auditorium. Performances are part of both the museum’s Performance Parameters series and Sushi’s monthlong Neofest.

Felder said communication--and the lack of it--is the basic theme that propels “Crossfire.”

Felder created musical motifs for the trombone that the composer describes as “manic and raging behavior.” The violin is more “steadfast and limited--more politically conservative.” Miles Anderson will play the trombone and Janos Negyesy the violin.

Eisenberg and Stout developed their own visions of “Crossfire.”

“The music came first, and they responded to it. By the time the piece was assembled, it had become much different than what I first envisioned,” Felder said. But that was fine with the composer--it’s part of the process he finds so stimulating.

For Stout, of Los Angeles, collaborating on “Crossfire” allowed plenty of room for self-expression.

“It’s still a multimedia work, but it was not highly defined. We worked independently, and each artist was able to move in our own direction. The idea of a dialogue--two people talking, but not really hearing what each has to say” was the common denominator for the collaborators, Stout said.

To Los Angeles-based choreographer Eisenberg, “Crossfire” conjures up “images of combat, thin-hoofed animals and a medieval sense of tournament-like jousting.”

Of the completed choreography, Eisenberg said, “I see it as miscommunication or non-communication--a sense of warring and tribalness. It’s a very group piece, and there’s even a lot of unison work (in the dance), but there’s no sense of flowing together. It’s more a feeling of alienation and isolation. The piece is very energetic and very strong, but very aggressive.”

Since the three collaborators are working independently, and from different geographic locations, the final product will be something of a surprise, even to the artists.

“Dancewise,” said Eisenberg, “no one has seen it yet. It’s really quite exciting, but we all like that sense of chance. I can’t wait to see how it all comes together.”

Felder, Eisenberg and Stout will each show their own wares during this concert.

“First we’ll have our individual pieces, and we each work in very different mediums,” said Stout. “We’ll begin with a dance by Mary Jane, and a music piece by David. Then, I’ll be doing two video pieces, and finally we’ll have the joint piece.”

Although Eisenberg will not be among the five dancers in “Crossfire,” she will make a solo appearance in her latest work, “A Gestural Way of Looking--The Overture to a Larger Body.”

“It’s the first section of a full-evening work, and I don’t usually make solos, or choreograph full-evening works, so it’s really a new venture for me,” Eisenberg said.