Dawn Matheson

Looking for Shower Singers!

Filed under:Uncategorized — posted by dawn on July 22, 2010 @ 11:03 pm

Looking for anonymous SHOWER SINGERS
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A site-specific sound installation curated by Dawn Matheson for the Guelph Jazz Festival’s Nuit Blanche on September 11, 2010.

The project will consist of pre-recorded private shower performances sung by amateur (and some professional) singers
—child and elder alike—from across Southern Ontario (approx. 30).

The anonymous recordings will be broadcast from the public fountain in St. George’s Square, Guelph.

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Who doesn’t sing in the shower?

For some, it’s a necessity, for if they sang in public, they’d surely be shot.

For others, the bathroom is an intimate venue ripe for improv where every singer becomes a virtuoso. Raw and naked belting out their very best to the gods of porcelain, the shower performer is centre stage at the Met, perhaps weeping a song of sorrow, perhaps living out a diva fantasy of fame, each show without the risk of a boo.

The shower creates the perfect conditions for the chanteuse. The tiled walls act as an echo chamber enriching the voice, bottoming out the bass, boosting the volume…and, the hum of the shower, drowning out the sour notes.

The widespread phenomenon of singing in the shower rarely gets a public audience.
Here, a secret community of closet minstrels—“The Mighty Shower Singers”—is given a venue at the prestigious Guelph Jazz Festival and its all-night art show.
Shrouded in ** anonymity** , the once-private shower concert finds an ear in the passerby, the art fan, the discerning jazz critic.

HOW TO PARTICIPATE?

• Record yourself singing in the shower! Give it your all—fumbling, forgotten words, improvised or polished. (With the street noise and the gurgling of the public fountain, your voice won’t likely even be recognized)

• 3-minutes maximum.

• Use your own digital recorder (mini-disc, digital video camera, ipod, etc—many personal electronic devices have sound recording capacity)
• Or, borrow a digital recorder from a musician you know. (If you throw a stone in Guelph, you’ll hit a musician)
• Or borrow one from me if you are local by sending me an email at mathesondawn@gmail.com

• Email me an audio file of your recording by AUGUST 20, 2010, OR contact me to collect your audio track in person.

Thanks ever so much—and please spread the word far and wide.
It would be lovely to have a great diversity of song.

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I’m just getting this site up and running…

Filed under:Uncategorized — posted by dawn on July 1, 2010 @ 10:10 pm

…so it is rough and incomplete.

Please come visit again when I can update the categories. For now, I have a few posts with some links to projects.

Appreciate you visiting.

Dawn

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Project AUDITION call for participants

Filed under:Uncategorized — posted by dawn on @ 10:03 pm

i sent this out to my email address book today:

Most of us have attended Nuit Blanche (If you haven’t, it’s a wild
night), but participating– moreover, performing– really rocks. I am
looking for 10 minutes in the 12-hour duration of the evening.
Your time will generate a lot of free promotion (and a potentially
HUGE audience) for yourself on the biggest art night of the year.
Plus, it’ll be a hoot.

(A link to a website of the project will follow, just, er, have to
make it first.) In the meantime, I am asking for your help in getting
the word out to any and all connections you may have in the ACTING
WORLD.

My project for Nuit Blanche (OCTOBER 2– all night in TORONTO) will be
installed at the GLADSTONE HOTEL on Queen St– hip hip hooray, as it
is a great venue at the heart of the Downtown Core exhibition. There
is TONS of traffic and they do tons of promotion.

Here’s a synopsis of the project:
Project AUDITION is a site-specific audio project performed outside on
the second-floor balcony of the Gladstone Hotel to an audience of
passersby on Queen Street below. (If ever there was a balcony meant
for speeches, that’s the one.)
The work is composed of a succession of MONOLOGUES performed live (or
rehearsed– actor’s choice) by a mixed bag of amateur, professional,
famous and student actors working in film, television and theatre from
across Southern Ontario, as if auditioning for the open night, the
cityscape panorama, the Nuit Blanche art fan and the Queen Street
regular.
AUDITION allows the general public in on the first critical stages of
the creative process usually only privy to the director and stage
manager.
Catching perhaps just a snippet of a soliloquy, accidently
eavesdropping on a small intimacy, or hearing a line out of context,
the monologue– always just a part of larger story– takes on new
meanings and potential varying significances in contrast to the
surrounding scene on the street below in that moment.
What monologue will stop traffic? Which performance will generate a
crowd, which a boo? Here, an actor tosses their calling card off the
balcony– their voices will echo below, as will their passion, their
showmanship, their bravado, their fear, fumbling, and false starts.
*It’s the actor’s choice to remain anonymous (it is difficult to see
the speaker from the balcony) or self-promote through an introduction.
The choice of monologue(s) will be that of the actors (most actors
have a repertoire of many: classic and a contemporary monologues, both
dramatic and comedic) but will be determined in advance and scheduled.
For blank slots, I will accommodate impromptu monologues by Nuit
Blanche goers. (Yikes!)
A new monologue will be performed every 10 minutes.
I’m working on free drinks for participants. Whether you need it
before or after, it’s your call.

Please help me spread the word.
I will need approximately 70 actors. It is a short commitment (10
minutes), a fun one and hugely rewarding.
*** If you are involved in the FRINGE FEST or SUMMERWORKS or a
SOUTHERN ONTARIO THEATRE or THEATRE SCHOOL, please let me know how I
can promote the project there.
And if forwarding email, please include my address so I can keep track.

THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR THIS.
It should be a GREAT party.
Best,

Dawn Matheson

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