Tag: process

Evidence

Had a great evening at the Evidence performance on July 27!

It was a real treat to hear Stephan and Scott again, and especially so since this was the first-ever in the new Nonesuch Centre for the Performing Arts.

Harvey Lev does Pre-concert Introductions, and Stephan & Scott offer a bit of explanation regarding what the audience is about to hear

It became readily apparent that these two musicians have worked together for some time – but I didn’t realize how long it’s been until that night. 17 years! A real testament to their friendship, and the way their respective practices as sound artists and composers complement one another.

I found it interesting too that the each use completely different software for working with the field recordings they use in live performance. As Stephan pointed out to me after the concert, they think differently, and so they’re each designed their workspaces/software in the way that best suits each of them. Made perfect sense, but for some reason it hadn’t occurred to me … and are what they did together even more remarkable somehow, for the seamlessness and symbiosis between them in performance.

Some of the crowd that night
The performance underway – Stephan encouraged the audience to look around or close their eyes, because as he put it, he and Scott “were going to look like they were reading disturbing emails for most of the concert”

I also (despite Stephan’s advice to the contrary) found myself watching the two of them as much as I spent time with my eyes closed, immersed in the soundscape they were creating. Their concentration, and the deep attentiveness they paid to one another and to the improvisational work that developed between them was a fantastic lesson in presence, and in how much we ‘forget to hear’ or simply ‘tune out’ in daily living. Admittedly, often with good reason – there’s not a little white noise to filter just to stay sane these days! But nonetheless – we also miss many amazing little moments through inattention.

And after the concert, there was a happy and unexpected bonus: a great post-performance Q&A session with the audience! Lovely to hear the feedback from several in attendance – there were many insightful, thoughtful questions and comments, which I’m sure was rewarding for Stephan and Scott. Always nice to know that your work has provoked thought and generated interesting connections and ideas for people!

A great night overall, and in a really beautiful space.

Just sorry that Stephan had to leave us to go back to Chicago so soon. I’m hoping he’ll be back sooner rather than later!

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A Visitor!

Had a lovely visit from fellow artist Emily Jan!

She was in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick on a short visiting-friends-and-seeing-new-things holiday, and fortuitously, it worked out that she could come to Parrsboro for a couple of days.

Lobster Roll at the Harbourview Restaurant in Parrsboro!

We started at Partridge Island and the beach below Ottawa House, and then headed out to First Beach for some lunch and to see the Bay at high tide for the day (something I hadn’t seen at this location, despite all my trips out here!).

We had a blast touring around beaches and going on foraging adventures, talking art and life, and generally enjoying this magnificent locale.

Then we were off again to the beach a Diligent River, which is stunningly beautiful – but required patience, because the tide wasn’t exactly in our favour. It took some roaming and squishing through red Fundy mud to finally get across to the gravel spit to forage for goodies. Didn’t get much, but it was worth it many times over in any case; the view is a special thing.

 

 

 

Such a treat, in so many ways – it’s always nice when work and not-work come together with friends, and it becomes an opportunity to accomplish things AND just hang out!

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Incoming … Upcoming … a concert!

One of the great things about doing this residency is the opportunity to see my collaborator Scott Smallwood in action, both as an sound artist and a composer.

So I’m really excited to say that Scott and another of his collaborators, Stephan Moore, will be in Parrsboro on Thursday July 27th to do a performance as Evidence!

Details below:

 

Excited for this – and if you are in the area, please come! Admission is by donation/pay what you can.

It’s the FIRST performance in the new Nonesuch Centre for the Performing Arts too!

 

If you want to know more about Macromareal – there’s info up at the Main & Station website too.

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A Few Days In … and it’s great to be back here!

I’ve been getting settled in here the last few days – setting up my workspace, getting tools and materials unpacked, looking at and working with some found objects that have been stored here by my hosts and I over the last year (thanks Harvey & Judith!).

I’ve spent a lot of time walking too – getting out to the shore, walking the beaches, sitting and listening.

I’ve needed the time to slow down … to start to get myself in synch with this place, and with the tides especially.

The pace here is slower, to be sure (a welcome thing!) but the shift runs deeper. The rhythm of the day is so different; it is (and perhaps always will be) influenced by the cyclic push and pull of all that water – even if one’s daily life has little to do with the sea or tide, it’s here. Permeates everything.

I didn’t realize how much I’d missed it.

 

And I’ve missed the fog – it’s sultry dance across the water, the fingers that wrap themselves around the land and disappear as quickly as they touched it. Not an experience we often get on the Prairies, to be sure (though we have had more fog in the Edmonton river valley the last few years).

 

And all. that. water. Almost sentient at times, it seems. It’s unforgiving; beautiful and terrible in its power and capacity to overwhelm.

During the 12.4-hour tidal period, 115 billion tonnes of water flow in and out of the bay.

I find that number incomprehensible intellectually; viscerally, it makes perfect sense.

So it’s a matter for me of finding ways to express that in some way; to look at how humans have sought to understand this fact … to dig into the different ways all those tons of water have shaped the place, physically and otherwise.

The many ways the tide means.

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Creating a RUCKUS, update!

I wrote last month about a dance/choreography project I am involved in – RUCKUS – and wanted to offer an update on Anastasia’s progress for funding this phase of the work.

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The GoFundMe campaign has raised$1200 so far – which is exciting – HUGE THANK YOU to everyone that has supported this so far!

That $1200 is about 70% of the goal for the project – so, it’s doing well – but it’s getting down to the wire to make the last 30%, so that everyone involved can be paid properly for their work to make this project a reality.

This is a really exciting chapter in my practice, I would really love to be able to continue to work with these fine dancers and choreographers.

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If you would like to help support this work, there’s still time to contribute (even the price of a coffee out will make a difference) –  our collective, RUCKUS-filled thanks.

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IMAGE CREDIT: All Images,  Ernest at Studio E Photography

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Maelstrom – Wave Photography by Luke Shadbolt

I have been silent for a while here.

Left speechless and heartsick by world events. Exhausted by hate, lies, and willful ignorance which seems de rigueur.

I need to write about these things – speak what I need to speak – but thus far, I find myself stumbling over words, at odds with logic and sentences and written or verbal expression. Words do, indeed, fail.

So, it is to images I turn, and in that way of things that brings one what is needed in the moment, I came across the gloriously violent images of Luke Shadbolt, reblogged from eMORPHES here.

My thanks to Luke Shadbolt and eMORPHES for the painful beauty that says so much in the closing days of a difficult year.

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Helping to Create a RUCKUS!

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I had the pleasure earlier this fall of working with Anastasia Maywood, Krista Posyniak, and Alison Kause (and a group of amazing dancers!) on a new dance work-in-progress called RUCKUS.

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Anastasia has been given a residency by the Good Women Dance Collective in Edmonton to develop the work further, and has launched a GoFundMe Campaign to support the residency work, so that we can bring RUCKUS to life  as a more fully-developed work.

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I am so excited by this collaborative process, and being able to create sculptural work specifically for people (dancers) to interact with has been both challenging and a whole lot of fun. What this work is teaching me about sculpture and space is invaluable, and I am working with some wonderful, intelligent and talented women in making this idea a reality.

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If you would like to support this project, you can help Create a RUCKUS here!

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IMAGE CREDIT: All Images,  Ernest at Studio E Photography

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Going Away to Come Home

Like many people,  this past weekend I found myself more acutely aware of the many sorts of bounty that surround me, the many things for which abiding gratitude is necessary.

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I spent a ‘working weekend’ surrounded by great company and sparsely beautiful countryside … and did a serious recharge in the process. (the amazing food shared by everyone out there this past weekend contributed to health, contentment, and gratefulness, to be sure)

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I was sad to be away from home for Thanksgiving, but was very grateful for a final opportunity to work on my more local site-specific projects one last time before winter sets in, in earnest.

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I had three goals in mind  for my time out at ‘The Farm’: to take stock of  what the last year has brought me & where things are going creatively, get on the far side of a nasty cold that threatened to eat my sinuses and brain, and at least get close to finishing a new sculptural work – Dervish Reach – I had started on site last month (more on that work soon) … .

As it turns out, I got an added bonus: I was finally able to see Make:Believe in snow! (A bit early for my liking, but at least the weather wasn’t very cold, and it was rather lovely)

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Make:Believe has always had a stillness about it –  walking through the work, one becomes conscious of the way any activity in the surrounding landscape seems to fall away. I had wanted it to be a place that invited visitors of all species to pause – rest, play, wander – as they chose. As the work has grown over the years, this stillness has become more and more established, but the snow seemed to set it apart entirely.

I became deeply aware of this work as a space for quiet to be held and nurtured – a living reminder of how necessary it is to stop and be still now and again in order to appreciate more fully the gifts this life offers.

A productive weekend, in many ways.

 

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