Matt Mehlan - Slow Dances (2021)

Slow Dances is a card game. It's also choreography. And an artist book and an album. Slow Dances could be an educational tool or corporate icebreaker intervention. Or weird yoga. Or experimental exercise. Slow Dances is fodder for your next awkward party or the heady performance for your next happening.

Made in a special collaboration between the interdisciplinary artists Matt Mehlan (Skeletons) and Sonnenzimmer (Nick Butcher & Nadine Nakanishi), Slow Dances brings together the brilliant graphic virtuosity and cross-media thinking of the latter, with the whimsical musical experimentation and photography of the former - into a wholly original, and fun, multimedia object.

Released as a 53-card deck (52 playing cards + USB card drive with music), Slow Dances is a multi-player dance game consisting of a series of prompt cards (designating POSE, SPIRIT, and PACE - with WILD CARDS for the extra unexpected) intended to guide each player through choreographed dances. What results is a a flexible score for dancing - paired with the Official Slow Dance Music - based on chance and dancers' own interpretations.

Matt Mehlan is an artist, musician, and producer based in Chicago. An active figure in underground music in New York City for a decade before returning to his hometown; Matt leads the band Skeletons, the multimedia project Uumans, and runs the record label Shinkoyo.

Matt is a co-founder of the original Silent Barn space in Queens, NY, a member of the 19 piece supergroup Congotronics Vs Rockers (with Deerhoof, Konono No 1, Juana Molina, Kasai Allstars), and has produced, recorded, mixed, and mastered releases by Zeena Parkins, Janka Nabay, Anthony Braxton, Joe McPhee, Jobs, Amirtha Kidambi, IE, Nine 11 Thesaurus, The Fly Girlz, and The Wet Ink Ensemble, among others. He has performed around the world and released music on Shinkoyo, Ghostly International, Tomlab, Crammed Discs, The Social Registry, Sockets, and Altin Village and Mine.