If we do not live near the ocean are we separate from it? Some would say this is a planet of water with land interruptions. If we listen down into the ground to the tributaries that connect to great lakes, the brackish waterways towards the ocean, can we listen with the ocean? If we take a deep breath, are we sharing the breath of cetaceans? The deep ocean, this life-giving and complex multi-being body of water, is described as unknowable. In listening with the ocean we may discover something as yet unknown.
In this three-hour gathering with Anne Bourne, participation stems from Deep Listening practice and the Sonic text scores of Pauline Oliveros, with standing by artist/osteopath Lesley Greco, as well as sound offerings by composer/percussionist germaine liu. The practice of Deep Listening offers embodied listening, extreme slow walk, attunement, and collective creative expression.
The experience invokes notions of interstitial places of rest, sonic presence, listening and equilibrium in darkness. No experience necessary. The intention is to create a choral sound field in a particular moment in time, with movement influenced by the temporality of the wave patterns of water. The workshop invites a deeper attunement to each other, ourselves, our bodies, and the more-than-human by expanding sensory listening imagination. “In listening within my field recordings I propose an environmental attunement experience leading towards the algorithmic text score, The Tuning Meditation by Pauline Oliveros when we sing!,” explains artist Anne Bourne. “It is transmitted aurally. I invite participants to listen, and find equilibrium within the surroundings.”
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Anne Bourne is a sound artist/director. Anne imparts the listening and toning scores of Pauline Oliveros for collective creative expression and environmental attunement. Anne composes for improvised acoustic cello, and applies field recordings of the sound of listening to the wave patterns of water. Anne’s latest recording is as a guest cellist on the album From Where You Came by Kara Lis Coverdale (2025).
annebournemusic.com
germaine liu (Hong Kong born, Cantonese-Chinese-Canadian) works and plays in multi-modalities. As a sound artist, percussionist, improvisor, and explorer of found objects, her work indulges in the permeability between touch/movement/sound, and their relationship to topography and circumstance.
With backgrounds in osteopathy, movement and voice, Lesley Greco bridges osteopathic philosophy with functional movement principles to support integrated physical expression. Lesley’s writing is included in The Anthology of Essays on Deep Listening published in 2012 and in Resistance and Support: Contact Improvisation @ 50 published by Oxford University press 2024.
Refreshment break included.
This event is copresented by IICSI, The International Institute for Studies in Improvisation at the University of Guelph, and curated by Anna Bowen.
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