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The Tao of Phantom

~ The Living Labyrinth of The Phantom of the Opera.

The Tao of Phantom

Category Archives: Art

A Couple of Upcoming Gigs! #OT2018 #music #performances #Toronto #OpenTuning #Festival and #CUPE3903 #YorkUStrike

04 Monday Jun 2018

Posted by Sarah Erik in Art

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"Open Tuning" OT2018, arts, labour, music, performances, politics, strike

So I thought I’d mention a couple of gigs that I’ve got coming up that I’m very excited about! First of all, I’ll be performing once again at the Open Tuning Festival this Saturday (June 9). For those in the Toronto area, I’ll be on at 5 PM in the garage behind KOP’s Records at Bathurst and Bloor (see the schedule on the Open Tuning website for details). I’ll be the fourth or so act on the program at that venue this time!

Then, next Saturday on June 16, I’ll be singing again at a fund-raiser for my union local, CUPE (Canadian Union of Public Employees) Local 3903. It’s the local that represents the teaching assistants, contract faculty, and graduate assistants at my university, and the fund-raiser is to support the strike we’ve been on for 14 weeks now! We’ve been struggling for a fair and decent contract, and to push back against precarious working conditions, especially for the contract faculty. You can read all about it at here! Anyway, as you can imagine, the length of the strike has seriously depleted our funds. So we’re doing lots of things to raise money to continue the struggle, including this event! For those in town, it’ll be at the Glad Day Bookshop at Church and Wellesley on the evening of the 16th. And I’ll be contributing some of my songs to the effort, which I’m very excited about! For those of you not in town, there’s a GoFundMe campaign that folks can contribute to. And we’d be hugely grateful for whatever support you can give!

Anyway, apologies for not getting these posted sooner. In fact, though, because of the way this year’s been going for everyone involved in organizing these events, they’ve only just come together! So I really hope in-town folks can make it to one or the other!

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Very successful Open Tuning Fest! #OTFest2017 #MusicTheatrePunk

12 Monday Jun 2017

Posted by Sarah Erik in Art

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"Dark Resistance", "fellow artists", "Open Tuning", covers, music, OTFest2017, performances, performing, Sister Comrade

So the show on Saturday went awesomely! It’s always tough doing an out-door gig on a really hot day. But it went really well in spite of that! And thankfully it wasn’t nearly as hot as it could have been. Not like today! Yikes!

So the water held out through my whole set thank goodness, and the tech behaved. And the songs I did seemed to go over really well too! I did a bunch from Dark Resistance, as well as some covers of a couple of my favourite songs. And the people working the PA/sound-board were really great! Thank them hugely! They did a fabulous job balancing me and my accompaniment tracks and generally making me sound smashing! 🙂 And huge thanks also to Ysabeault aka Sister Comrade (also aka Mom) who advised me on my costume. She did a great job making me look awesome as well as sound great! And I really rely on that because, although I’ve learned pretty well how to put together a sharp outfit that fits the style I’m trying to cultivate, it can still be all too easy for the idea I have in my head to not actually work in reality. And, as a Blind performer trying to work in a culture where image counts for so much, that help avoiding fashion gaffs is an incredibly critical piece of accessibility support!

🙂 Btw, one of the covers I did was of one of Ysabeault/Sister Comrade’s songs, the title track from her forthcoming EP World On Fire! Her own stuff’s much more country/folk, so I did up an accompaniment track to do it in my style. And it worked awesomely! And Sister Comrade came up on stage and sang it with me, which rocked! I’ll be singing on World On Fire when it comes out, too, so I thought it’d be great to bring that into my set!

Anyhow, we got some video, too, which I’ll get posted ASAP. So stay tuned for that! LOL It might be a couple of weeks at least, though, because I’ll need to renew my Vimeo Plus subscription to be able to host larger files again. And that’ll have to wait till pay-day! Also, the image-quality may not be great because it was an out-door venue. And, because of where the stage was set up, I was apparently kind of back-lit, which I know isn’t the greatest on camera! So I’ll have to go through the footage (with the help of some one with sight) and see if any of it’s workable. 🙂 But hopefully I’ll have some stuff to put up soon. And huge thanks again to Ysabeault/Sister Comrade for personing the camera while I was on stage, and to the person from the crew who ran it during our duet! Much appreciated!

My only regret about the day is that I wasn’t able to see/hear as much of the rest of the festival as I’d have liked. LOL, by the time I got off stage, Ysabeault and I were both really exhausted and starving! As I said, doing an out-door gig in summer heat can be tough. Plus, I’d been up late getting last-minute stuff done. LOL So we folded early! I did get to hear and support some of my fellow performers, though, which I was really glad about!

Anyway, that’s it for another year. 🙂 Though I’m looking forward to next year’s festival already! And huge thanks to Open Tuning and to Kop’s Records (the venue where I sang) for having me. I’m looking hugely forward to doing it again in 2018!

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OK! Venue and Time confirmed for PhantomFemme at Open Tuning!

27 Saturday May 2017

Posted by Sarah Erik in Art

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"Dark Resistance", "Open Tuning", music, OTFest2017, performances, performing

Wow! So it’s just two weeks till the festival! Two weeks from today, I’ll be preparing to go on and perform for all of you, and you’ll, hopefully, be preparing to come down to Seaton Village and hear great music! Seaton Village is the part of down-town Toronto that’s in the square bounded by, going clockwise, Dupont, Bathurst, Bloor and Christie. I’ll be one of around 130 incredibly diverse acts, ranging from acoustic singer/song-writer type things to full punk bands to hiphop artists, and from youth and amateur musicians to seasoned performers. It’s going to rock!

So where I’ll be in all this awesomeness is on the stage set up in the garage behind Kop’s Records. You can check out the Facebook event page to see where that is, and also to see who else is playing there. I’m the second act up, so I’ll be on at 3 PM. I’m really excited about it! It’s going to be a great afternoon! LOL Though, the next two weeks are going to be bonkers busy getting ready for it. 🙂 But I’ll be doing some great songs, both from Dark Resistance and, hopefully, beyond, and I’ll be sharing the stage with an awesome line-up of other bands! So check it out!

We’re also using this really cool app called Sched to share the festival schedule. So you can go onto the app, bookmark your favourite acts and when we’re on, and make yourself up a customized schedule that you can download to your phone, iPad, etc. And it has bios and info for all the acts as well! (Or it will as soon as we get everything filled in.) So you can find out all about us and decide who you want to hear!

Anyway, it’s going to be an awesome day. So be there!

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Awesome production of #SpringAwakening #musical by @DeafWest #Theatre!

12 Tuesday Jul 2016

Posted by Sarah Erik in Art

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access, disability, musicals, Phantom

LOL So I’ve actually been meaning to post about this since the end of April. Yeah, running behind! Sorry about that. What can I say? Things have been busy! Finished up classes, had an awesome visit with family :-), and then did a very successful gig at the Open Tuning Festival! LOL And then, after that, I’ve been just plain tired. And am still supposed to be getting work done on the first of my comps for my doctorate! Which I am, though probably not as much or as fast as I should. LOL Oops!

Anyway, I heard about this production back at the Cripping The Arts Symposium. And I’ve wanted to post about it ever since, because it sounds absolutely awesome! Heck, I’d love to see it! 😦 Though, apparently, its Broadway run is finished now. Bummer! But I’ve heard there’s a national (U.S.) tour planned? That’d be awesome! I really hope it’ll make some stops, either here in Canada, or somewhere in the States close enough for me to go. I’d love to support it! Anyway, it’s by the Deaf West Theatre Company out in California (San Francisco I think), and it’s their take on the musical Spring Awakening. It’s apparently been a huge hit, too, even winning a whole whack of Tonies! LOL How did I not hear about this before?

So Deaf West are a company that do their shows, including musicals, in both English and ASL simultaneously. Apparently they’ve done Big River and Pippin previously. But what makes their production of Spring Awakening revolutionary is that they’ve allowed it to directly address ableism. And the brilliant thing is that they’ve done it without altering any of the original script or lyrics! Spring Awakening was not originally written for Deaf/Disabled performers, nor was it intended to address issues such as ableism. But Deaf West have taken it and made it work!

The musical is adapted from a play from the 1890s about the challenges of coming of age in an ultra-repressive society. Thus, it’s characters deal with their emerging sexualities, and broader desires, in a context in which to even discuss such things is strictly forbidden, and obedience to systems/figures of authority regarded as the marker of well-adjustedness. And the musical preserves the “Victorian” setting of the play. But it makes it more than a simple period piece by, between scenes, having the characters grab microphones and sing their thoughts and feelings in a contemporary rock idiom. So it’s already intended to speak as much to our own time as to history!

Then, Deaf West took the radical step of, rather than creating a world on stage in which everyone magically knows Sign, as they’ve done for previous musicals, deliberately making some of the characters Deaf and some hearing, adding a layer to the issues around communication and silence already present in the story. They were inspired to do this by the Deaf history occurring around the time the original play was written and in which the musical takes place. For, just prior to that, in the 1880s, the body in charge of Deaf education (which, I’m assuming contained no Deaf people at that time) decided that children should be taught to speak and lip-read, and that ASL should be suppressed. And this, too, ads a new layer to the issues around normalization and conformism already addressed in the musical. You can read more about the original play, its musical adaptation, and Deaf West’s awesome reworking of it here.

The brilliance of this production is that, by picking a story which already addressed issues of intergenerational communication, normalization, conformism and resistance, Deaf West were able to create a musical that’s accessible to both Deaf and hearing actors and audience. And, because this was done so organically, it resonated with both audiences all the way to 8 (I believe) Tonies! And, contrary to much of the commentary I heard from folks at the Cripping the Arts Symposium, I don’t think this is just because it happened to be the 20th anniversary of the ADA (Americans With Disabilities Act) at the time. I think it’s because the story itself in its musical adaptation was a natural fit. So, when the audience saw/heard it, the universal design didn’t feel like an adaptation or an add-on, it felt like an organic part of the story-telling. And, while that’s easier to achieve with new shows, because it can be written in right from the get-go, it’s much harder to achieve with a revival of an existing show!

So, naturally, I’m now absolutely dying to see what could be done to create a universal design production of Phantom! Because, like Spring Awakening, it’s a story about the consequences and effects of exclusion. So it, too, should be a natural fit! But there would, admittedly, be some major challenges. One of the big ones, of course, would be that it’s very much a story about music and singing. So I have no idea how ASL could be organically incorporated! Also, the show’s original aesthetic – Victorian high romance, yet at the same time very sparse and almost minimalist – would present some interesting challenges to physical accessibility. And that aesthetic is a great part of what Phans love about the show because of the way it works a richly layered symbolism into the experience. So it’s really important, IMHO, that that symbolic richness and aesthetic be respected! (ahem, 2015 touring production directed by Lawrence Connor that totally trashed said aesthetic, and not even for the good reason of trying to make the show accessible.) So it’d require real creativity to adapt POTO for universal access! 🙂 But I’d love to see some one take a crack at it. Because, a musical about the need for justice and inclusion shouldn’t exclude in its design and staging! #POTOWalkTheWalk

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The Afronaughts Have Landed!

28 Sunday Feb 2016

Posted by Sarah Erik in Art

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Art, Black, history, performance, politics, race

So a couple of weeks ago, I went to my friend Camille Turner’s new art-installation/happening. It was really cool!  Her work, both artistically and academically (:-) she’s also one of my colleagues in Ph.D Land),  is all about trying to unearth Black histories that have been buried by the White settler enterprise, and reinsert them into our narratives of what Canada is.  Her stuff’s very much part of what inspired me to get started!

 

Anyway, this piece, called “The Afronaughts Have Landed”, explores slavery in Canada.  It imagines that the Afronaughts – the people/beings who, in ancient times, shared wisdom from the Sirius star-system with the Dogon people (of what is now Mali) – have come back to help because they’ve seen the mess we’ve gotten ourselves into here.  And they’ve unearthed evidence of slavery.  So the Afronaughts (Camille and her fellow performers) stood silently around us while we, the audience, sat at a table and looked at their discoveries – old adds for or about slaves from newspapers from what was then Upper and Lower Canada (present-day Ontario and Quebec), as well as from the Maritimes (especially present-day Nova Scotia).  And while we did this, a recording played of a voice (it sounded like text-to-speech) reading out these adds along with other information about Canadian slavery.  It was really fascinating!  Though, also, pretty dreadful.  I didn’t even know we’d had slavery in Canada!  😦 They tend to neglect that part in our history classes, focussing instead on our heroic role as destination of the Underground Railroad.  But we were slave-owners too, of both Black/African and Aboriginal slaves according to Camille’s research!  And this was so for both English and French Canada.

 

Anyway, it was a really cool piece!  I can’t wait to experience her next work!  As I said, Camille’s stuff’s been a huge inspiration for my own.  I love the way she uses art to address politics, and to open up issues people would like not to talk about!  You can check out more of her awesome work at her website.  🙂 Very awesome!

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