Sven Britt and The Feast That Never Comes
Sven Britt
In this profile series, Revry is highlighting authentic contributors to the queer media and entertainment community. We ask questions to find out who they are and where they are going in the future. The questions remain the same but the answers tell their unique story. It’s time to explore and celebrate true representation beyond the limits of Hollywood.
Hello! I’m Sven Britt (He/Him), a composer from Brooklyn. After years of producing and touring with multiple projects playing at Bonnaroo, as well as opening for Son Lux, Patrick Watson, Sebadoh, and so many more, I’ve now started focusing on constructing music for dance and immersive theatre, which has been presented at La MaMa Moves!, Danspace Project, Fengchao Theatre, Triskelion Arts, the University of Hawaii at Manoa, and The Iron Factory. My upcoming album under the moniker Ex-Fiancée, A FEAST THAT NEVER COMES—directed by my longtime collaborator (and husband) Chris Masters—will be released following its short dance film/suite of music videos’ film festival circuit, which has accrued over 500 awards and selections thus far in the most competitive year in film festival history.
What are you best known for?
It’d be nice to know the definitive answer to this question. I suppose it depends on the asker—from a person in the concert dance world, it’ll be my longstanding collaboration with ChrisMastersDance, from someone in the dance film world, it’ll be my (still-unreleased) short dance film, A FEAST THAT NEVER COMES (attached to an upcoming album of the same name), which has been making its way through the festival circuit, and from someone in indie music, it’ll likely be my time with Stranger Cat, an electronic soul duo with Cat Martino (The Shins, Sufism Stevens, Sharon van Etten).
What is the first thing you worked on professionally?
“Professionally” is a word that trips me up… I toured with Terror Pigeon Dance Revolt early on in my career and quickly formed Stranger Cat. But in terms of pure “professionalism,” I think I have to say that my work with ChrisMastersDance (which is largely viewable at https://www.chrismastersdance.org and which scores are available on all streaming services under the moniker Ex-Fiancée) is when I hit a different level of professionalism. And then the short dance film was certainly expensive enough to be the most professional thing I’d done to date if we’re correlating cost to professionalism in the way that it usually is.
What are you working on that no one knows about yet?
Well, not “no one,” as I’ve got some collaborators, but there are two things. A new album where the conceptual precipice is the intersection of inertia and excess, and a new live concert dance work, MAUSOLEUM, with ChrisMastersDance, which reckons with similar subjects, for which I’m both composing the music and functioning as the camera operator for live simulcast projection, in order to reframe the audience’s view by allowing them to see various and myriad perspectives, including following the performers backstage. The latter work is particularly challenging, as the ethos of the work is deeply tied into restructuring the treatment of collaborators in the dance world to a more ethical and equitable norm… which, of course, without substantial institutional support, is costing us arms and legs. So I suppose this is the part where I should abandon my pride and shamelessly say that donations to ChrisMastersDance are tax-deductible, just in case you’re looking for a tax break while helping queer work treat collaborators ethically.