On Thursday, Jan. 19, local professor Rusty Banks will perform a concert titled "Creatures: Some Mythical" at The Ware Center, 42 N. Prince St., Lancaster. The concert will begin at 7 p.m. and include several visual art projections created by Dan Zdilla and Andy Babin.

Banks began writing the music for the show on a classical guitar five years ago. Using surround-sound speakers, Banks started toying with the position of each note to play with the audience's perception of space and sound. The resulting piece features guitar melodies that shift from one end of the room to the other in an attempt to blur the lines between reality and imagination. The theme of the show follows its methods closely. Each movement depicts a different creature that is surrounded in lore; some of the creatures are real and some are fictitious.

"It started out with cryptids, and then I started adding real creatures that just have mythical qualities," said Banks. "They're all mythical in some way. The show splits the difference between the real and the mythical."

The first movement is named after the hoop snake, a rare creature that Banks remembers hearing about while growing up in rural Alabama. According to those who claim to have seen it in person, the hoop snake is a reptile that travels by biting its own tail and rolling down hills like a wheel. Banks mimics the behavior of the hoop snake in his movement by using an echo effect while playing the guitar so that each note is repeated. "Much like the tale of the hoop snake, this music in the piece seems to chase itself," Banks said.

The concert will comprise six movements, each named after a different creature that will be visually represented with a collage made by Dan Zdilla. For example, one of the movements is named after the hellbender - a very rare but very real salamander. According to folklore, the hellbender protects fish from fishermen by covering fishing hooks with slime so that fish won't bite them. The accompanying collage portrays the hellbender protecting a pond full of fish.

Banks and Zdilla collaborated on the musical and visual aspects of the show and enlisted Babin to project the collages onto the stage during the performance. Banks has worked with both Zdilla and Babin on other projects in the past and is an adjunct professor at Millersville University, where he teaches guitar and virtual instruments.

"One thing I hope to do with the show is to make the audience question the space they're sitting in and make it seem like things are happening that aren't possible," said Banks. "I want it to feel like the audience is taking a journey into those collages and meeting those creatures."

To purchase tickets, call the box office at 717-871-7600 or visit http://www.ArtsMU.com.