The Text Workshop: Winter 2012

If you’re looking for an online text workshop open to international participants in winter 2012, I’ll be facilitating this from January to April 2012.

The Text Workshop is designed for people in-progress on project or manuscript development and will be tailored to respond to concerns and interests of participants. We will spend time entering the worlds of each project that participants are constructing. We will consider how to shape a project, appropriate one’s own material, rework texts, and develop performance. Additional topics we will cover include project descriptions, publishing and materials, and why create a manuscript/project/text.

LANGUAGE: Workshop discussions will occur in English. If you’re working with other or multiple languages in your project, you’re welcome to join (with the caveat that feedback may not deal directly with the language of your project if unfamiliar to participants, but instead more with the conceptual framework, performance, structure/format, or sound of your project).

PROJECT FORMAT: The workshop is open to projects being developed in conventional textual forms (chapbook, book, etc.) as well as other performance, visual, sonic, inter- or multidisciplinary forms.

WHEN: The workshop sessions will occur every other Sunday from January to April. Workshop dates are: January 15, January 29, February 12, February 26, March 11, March 25, and April 8. Workshop sessions will be two hours in length. Since we’ll have people joining from different areas in the world, I propose this schedule:
San Francisco: 10am to noon
Calgary: 11am to 1pm
Toronto: 1pm to 3pm
Reykjavík: 6pm to 8pm
Paris: 7pm to 9pm

Workshop participants will also have the option to meet for a one-on-one consultation with me at some point during these months.

WHO: The workshops will be very limited in number of participants. All folks who register need to commit to the full workshop period.

WHERE: The workshops will take place in real-time audio/video conversation using Google+’s “hangout” widget, which allows up to ten people to chat using voice and video (for those with video capability). Participants in the workshops will need to use a computer that has dedicated internet access as well as audio capability; video is preferred but is not necessary for participation. We may also use Google Docs for exercises that require real-time collaboration or editing. We will also use DropBox to share in-progress work, documents, audio files, videos, images, or other material we share with the class. All workshop material will be kept confidential, though we may record (with permission of participants) some of the workshops for archival purposes.

COST: CDN$250. If you would like to propose some kind of alternative (trade, exchange, etc.), pitch it to me.

REGISTRATION: To register, please send me a reply letting me know you’d like to participate.

TECH ASSISTANCE: If you need any assistance setting up your Google+ account or using Google Docs, DropBox, PayPal, or e-mail money transfers, please send me a note.

QUESTIONS AND FEEDBACK: I invite any and all questions or feedback you have about the process at any point. The more I hear from you, the better we will be able to adapt these workshops to suit your interests, needs, urges, dreams.

The Scream Literary Festival: bpNichol’s Zygal

On July 8, The Scream Literary Festival held a late-night event in bpNichol Lane outside of Coach House Press to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the publication of bpNichol’s Zygal: A Book of Mysteries and Translations. Audience members were invited to perform from or in response to the book and many lovely folks shared material, including Bill Kennedy, Maggie Helwig, Hugh Thomas, Jenny Sampirisi, Natalie Zed, and Paul Dutton. Nichol recordings were broadcast, and one dear soul chalked a math equation of giraffes and old-style telephones on the pavement (“Probable Systems 15: Division of the Signified”).

For my Zygal reading, I shared Nichol’s “Travelling”. I like to read Tarot, and for the past two years have been developing a performance in Belgium with Maja Jantar where we read cards via vocal improvisation. Nichol’s poem proved divine transportation for me; the three groupings of lines suggested a past/present/future spread (starting left as past).

PAST: Improvised text. If memory serves, I read this something like, “There were bodies in space. Space was between these bodies. A body was in a space and then a body is in another space. There is space between these two bodies. The space is a body. Space is outside the body and inside. Bodies in space between bodies as space as bodies are space within space….”

PRESENT: Vocal improvisation triggered by the northernmost caught and cloistered voiceless inarticulation. Clearance. Troubled exhale, what is lodged in the throat. “Is. The. The. Is.” Overwhelm of memory of nowness near-vomits itself into the space.

FUTURE: And this is unknown. Blank. Open. Fraught. Thin line of now slips discomfort into what could be. Yet hope. We sat or stood in humid silence and I looked up from the book to make eye contact with each person in turn. Many returned my tentative smile. We focused. Nicky held up peace signs and we laughed. Thankfully.

The Centre for Sleep & Dream Studies

Friends have asked for a post-Centre for Sleep & Dream Studies report. And so…

The Centre for Sleep & Dream Studies was a late-night event I curated for The Scream Literary Festival on July 7, 2010 at Levack Block in Toronto. The idea for this event was to create a lounge atmosphere where attendees would be immersed within a performance that included an interactive element. I chose to go full-scale soundscape as the night’s major gesture. For collaborators, I asked two of my favourite artists in Toronto: Richard Windeyer and Ciara Adams. You may recognize their names from music circles, or from their mutual involvement as artistic directors for the experimental theatre collective bluemouth inc. (I’m on bluemouth’s board of directors). In addition to our bluemouth connection, Ciara and Richard were two of my primary collaborators and fellow performers when I began to investigate how my book, Wide slumber for lepidopterists, might translate from page to stage. It was this latter connection that begged their participation to make The Centre for Sleep & Dreams Studies a surreality Wednesday night.

But more about this event! We took over the front and back rooms of Levack Block from 10pm to 2am. The front room proved cacophonic and intense, where a boisterous crowd enjoyed conversation as Richard Windeyer improvised, composed, and live-mixed his own new music / soundscape throughout the night. Richard’s compositions included some sampling of my voice saying “Welcome to the Centre for Sleep and Dream Studies” and audience answers to a surrealist questionnaire.

In the back room, Ciara Adams worked one-on-one with crowd members in our patient-intake interview, who signed up with me to “see the doctor.” Each patient sat with Ciara for two minutes and answered a largely yes/no somniloquixotic questionnaire I devised (that featured questions from a proper Sleep/Dream Centre, questions from known surrealists, and some of my own curious queries, and a questionnaire that received loving guidance from Gary Barwin, François Luong, and Paul Vermeersch). This intimate moment proved quite a counterpoint to the bright, chaotic front room. Michael Knox volunteered as a second doctor for a brief period, even!

At the night’s end, Richard, Ciara, and I gave a short collective performance, our disturbed and disturbing lullaby for those soon to depart. While Ciara and I vocally improvised sounds of breath, fricatives, song, and orgasm, Richard captured and treated our output to create an immediate blur of acoustic and electronic. Richard shares reading of this here.

Again, much thanks to The Scream for inviting my curatorial activity. And takk fyrir to all who attended, enthused, and shared oneiric ebullience in bewitched hours. Heart is full.

–

SOMNILOQUIXOTIC QUESTIONNAIRE

Welcome to the Centre for Sleep and Dream Studies.

Do you snore?
Have you been told that you hold your breath while you sleep?
Are you irritable most or all of the time?
Do you sleep naked?
Are your eyes closed or open?

Welcome to the Scent for Leap and Ream Studies.

Do you talk in your sleep?
Do you walk in your sleep?
Do you kick in your sleep?
Do you jump in your sleep?
Do you juggle in your sleep?
Do you snuggle in your sleep?
Do you juxtapose in your sleep?
Do you adjust your knees in your sleep?
Do you sneeze in your sleep?
Do you sleep in your sleep?

Welcome to the Centaur for Elves and Demon Steeds.

Who are you?
At what age were you born?
Describe what the future sounds like, bleeding out of a speaker.
Do you ever dream of dolphins?
The most violent shape is:
The most beautiful sound is:
Do many innocent little waves weep over the softness of beds?
Have you ever had a dream that predicted the future?
Do you know the fate that awaits you?

Welcome to the Enter her Eep and Um Sturdy.

Have you been shut up in this cage for long?
Are you about to abandon us?
Is the air thick?
Do you dream of electric sheep?

Well, cum. Elk.

Have you beavered into loon?
Do you know what moose are?
Do you want to know what moose are?
Do you want to rabbit?
Do you moose your loon?
Have you beavered in moose?
Do you want to beaver in moose?
Are you in rabbit?
Are you in rabbit with loon or moose?
Are fern moose?

Well Question qu’where.

Do you question air?
Are you a questing heir?
Do you request air?
Does this question err?

Welcome to the Centre for Sleep and Dream Studies.

Where are you?
How aware are you?
Is your love everywhere?
Is it how you see it?
Isn’t it how we see it?
Is it in the lines?
Isn’t it, more or less?

Be welcome. Sleep. Dream.

Ghent: Jantar/rawlings @ Logos

On June 1st at 20:00, a.rawlings and Maja Jantar share a 60-minute performance of collaborative projects for the Logos Foundation in Ghent, Belgium. They will share new work from Órói and EFHILMNORSTUVWY (in addition to a Tarot reading and group improvisation called “How to Read a Line”)… two magmatic sets full of sound, text, movement, improvisation, lines, red, dissonance, divination, pornography, xenography, trees, owls, wolves, ljóða, love.

Amsterdam: a.rawlings and Maja Jantar @ Stichting Perdu

On May 28 at 20:30, a.rawlings and Maja Jantar perform a 90-minute set of solo and collaborative projects for Stichting Perdu in Amsterdam. They will share new work from Órói and EFHILMNORSTUVWY (in addition to a Tarot reading and Wide slumber for lepidopterists)… two magmatic sets full of sound, text, movement, improvisation, lines, red, dissonance, divination, pornography, xenography, trees, owls, wolves, lepidoptera, ljóða, love.

Brussels: maelstrÖm reEvolution fIestival

This Thursday, 6 May 2010, Maja Jantar and a.rawlings perform at the “12 voix de femmes +1” poetry event, part of the maelstrÖm reEvolution fIestival. The night also features lectures and performances by Anne Waldman (US), Marianne Costa (FR), Sheri D. Wilson (CA), Andrea Thompson (CA), Laurence Vielle (BE) on video, Julia Musté (FR), Laurence Barrère (FR), Catherine Delasalle (FR), Édith Azam (FR) and Nathalie Gassel (BR), and Milady Renoir (BE).

Influency Salon + new poem

Margaret Christakos’ popular poetry+poets course, Influency, has been a generative hub in Toronto the last few years. This week, Margaret and many excellent folks launched an online journal called Influency Salon, packed with poetry and commentary. The site also includes a new poem by me.

Interview: a.rawlings in Kistan

Ásgeir Ingólfsson recently interviewed me for the “Culture Nerd” section of the online journal Kistan. He translated my English responses into Icelandic for the site; you can read them here. The sister site, Culture Smuggling, contains my English version.

Toronto: Reading @ Pivot Series

Join David Derry, Zachariah Wells, and a.rawlings on Wednesday, March 10 @ 8pm for the Pivot Reading Series at the Press Club in Toronto.

Toronto: Element Choir CD release and performance

Christine Duncan conducts The Element Choir. Photo credit: Alisdair Jones.

Tonight at Christ Church Deer Park in Toronto (8pm, March 2nd, 1570 Yonge St.), Barnyard Records releases three new CDs from William Parker; Andrew Downing, Jean Martin, and Jim Lewis; and Christine Duncan’s Element Choir. All aforementioned folks will perform at this event.

I joined Christine’s Element Choir, a fascinating social experiment in vocal improvisation and non-traditional conduction techniques, in 2007. The Choir has a revolving group of participants with a range of sonic skill and interest. In March 2009, we recorded our debut CD at Rosedale United Church in Toronto. The recording features over fifty vocalists, with pipe organ, trumpet, and percussion. Alisdair Jones snapped these photos of the recording sessions (photos accompanying this blog post are Alisdair’s).

Tonight, we’ll launch this new CD. The Choir, rumoured to be 70+ strong tonight, will also improvise. If you’re unable to make the performance, it will also be recorded by the CBC. Eye Weekly offers this lovely article and interview with Christine about the Choir.

a.rawlings and Lara Solnicki sound with the Choir. Photo credit: Alisdair Jones.