DISPATCHES from the CHARCOAL FOREST
“DISPATCHES from the CHARCOAL FOREST,” a new multidisciplinary performance work by sound-art-installation artist, composer, musician, and vocalist Merlin Coleman (merlinman.com) is an expanded song cycle for six voices layered over an audiosculpture of found recordings, collected sounds, and interviews relating to the Sonoma County Tubbs Fires of 2017 (and beyond). DISPATCHES considers the human response to environmental crisis alongside our part in the creation of it; how we grieve and how we persist.
Coleman explains, “The piece begins with a sonic build up, mirroring the chaotic jumble at the beginning of those firestorms, voices of people trying to triage the situation. ‘Who’s out there?’ ‘What are we doing?’ — ‘All hands on deck’ became a line that is repeated in the piece, and is indicative of where we are now, a response to that immediate emergency and a statement about the bigger emergency, environmental, social, and political, that we are all in together.”
Presented in the round in an intimate setting, with performers moving in and around the audience, listeners are surrounded and saturated by live vocals layering with a quadraphonic soundscape comprised of looped, stacked, and interwoven recordings of 911 dispatcher calls; interviews with firefighters, clean-up crews, survivors, and ecologists; and the elemental musics of air, fire, and water.
As an artist living in Sonoma County, Coleman’s choice to draw attention to these fires and their aftermath is deliberate. “Even though the content is intense and even overwhelming at times,” she notes, “my intention is for DISPATCHES to be a contribution to a collective healing. I hope that this performance will create a space that can ultimately help people process these events.”
The latest in her series of performance installations and sonic environments that employ art to directly address environmental issues and our human responses to them, Coleman’s DISPATCHES highlights the beautiful and the terrible inherent in fire through stories of beauty, emergency, and extreme weather. She notes, “This work distorts inordinate circumstances through an absurdist lens to create an all-encompassing contemplation of fire, both literal and symbolic.”
The creation of DISPATCHES began at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity and was further developed during the Dresher Ensemble Artist Residency (DEAR) for time-based contemporary arts.
The DISPATCHES ensemble includes performers from Kitka Women’s Vocal Ensemble (kitka.org), and features Sound Engineering and Design contributions by Coleman’s longtime artistic collaborator Eric Oberthaler.
On May 1 & 2, DISPATCHES comprises half the bill, sharing with notable Bay Area sound artist, composer, and vocalist Amy X Neuburg (amyxneuburg.com) presenting her 8-channel 8-song immersive listening experience “Come to My House.”
Event Links
Tickets: https://go.evvnt.com/3564284-0
Website: https://go.evvnt.com/3564284-2
