Welcome to Woods in the Sound! In this episode we are exploring PLAY. That state of sensitivity, openness, readiness for surprises. That quality of connectedness and flow, imagination and capacity for joy. In play we are free to speak, to make, to be in ways where the intuitive flow takes over. We think of play as a quality that has a capacity to bust the cement and solemnity of established narratives, the dominant structures and histories we inhabit and inherit.
We invited several guests to explore the subject of PLAY together: Pied Butcherbird, Claire Edwardes, Hollis Taylor and Jon Rose who make interspecies music together, a theatre practitioner at Fool Size Theatre Joanne Tremarco, and an improvisational musician Stephen Nachmanovitch.
Guests
Hollis Taylor
Violinist/composer, zoömusicologist, and ornithologist Hollis is an ARC Future Fellow at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. She previously held research fellowships at the Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin, the Museum of Natural History in Paris, the University of Technology Sydney, and Macquarie University.
Pied Butcherbird
Pied Butcherbird and Hollis Taylor met at Owen Springs Reserve back in 2014. That’s pretty much all we may know about her verbally. Apart that we are honoured to be opening our Woods in the Sound with her ethereal and enlivening singing, recomposed by Hollis and joined in duet by Claire Edwardes on a vibraphone.
Jon Rose
Jon’s primary life's work is The Relative Violin: new instrument design, environmental performance, new instrumental techniques, radiophonic works, and the development of inter-active electronics. He is featured regularly in festivals of Ars Elektronica, Dokumenta, North Sea Jazz Fest, New Music America, Vienna Festival, Berlin Jazz Festival, and others.
Joanne Tremarco
Joanne has been making solo shows around societal taboos (such as death, sexuality, and others) with lightness and depth. She also co-runs a FoolSize Theatre company - an award winning, internationally touring company making both spontaneous and choreographed theatre for the street and the stage using the archetype of the Fool.
Stephen Nachmanovitch
Stephen performs and teaches internationally as an improvisational violinist, and at the intersections of music, dance, theater and multimedia arts. He is the author of The Art Of Is and Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art, and co-author of From This World, Another.
Violeta Lopiz
Violeta is an artist, book-maker, illustrator and educator. Her work evolves around continuous and joyous experimentation and exploration of such topics as human nature, cycles of the creative processes, connection to nature. She is working with a wide variety of media, including animation.
Credits and Episode notes
Produced by: Sabina Enéa Téari, Egor Sviri
Opening and closing music: Pied butcherbird, Claire Edwardes, Hollis Taylor, Jon Rose
Visuals: Alexander Sharapov
Episode artwork: Violeta Lopiz
Mentioned references:
* Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould
* A World of Many Worlds (by Marisol de la Cadena, Mario Blaser)
* From This World, Another (album by David Rothenberg & Stephen Nachmanovitch)
* Nightingales In Berlin (David Rothenberg)
* Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture (by Johan Huizinga)