into_the_breaks

Angel Elmore – Clarinet Norman W. Long – Electronics, Field Recordings Recorded at Ignition Project Space, September 23, 2017 Performance was part of the closing reception for Van Vlissingen Prairie (Video Album) Installation Long/Elmore Duo improvised with soundscapes from Van Vlissingen Prairie, Jeffery Manor, Big Marsh and Humboldt Park. Performance explores ways of understanding, being and connecting to ecology and the unknown. Through breath, space, memory, time and machines. How time collapses and folds in on itself and triggers new realities and roads to travel. Is it OK to have an imagination in these times? This is a convergence of traditions, non-traditions, experiences and sound making to create other black music.   After listening we realize these convergences happen more than we think. Thanks to Ignition Project Space, Mia Capodilupo and Doug Dewitt

Memory + Imagination + Presence How to be in a place that is new and old? How do I understand this place? How do we understand this place? I. When we do a soundwalk we prepare by noticing our breath, we listen to the closest things around us. Then we walk and listen to changes however slight. Acknowledge how we change the soundscape with each step and how the soundscape changes within Big Marsh. I started listening and recording as Big Marsh changed from a superfund “brownfield” site that was once home to “Slag and Ballast Company”, part of a network of factories, plants and mills for much of the 20 th Century to a remediated natural area and bike park. I think the condition of the soundscape reflects the condition of the community. It was my goal to reintroduce people to a new soundscape that is of the south side of Chicago. Where industry, once the backbone of the economy is gone and the natural ecology being allowed to come back. There maybe...

BIG MARSH PARK 11599 S Stony Island Ave, Chicago, Illinois 60607 SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 16, 1PM - 9PM PERFORMANCE - 4PM-5PM Norman W. Long (MSAE) and Sara Zalek (Butoh Chicago) will lead a soundwalk focusing on movement with nature. This performance/walk will deal with themes of repair, recovery and resilience. Norman and Sara will perform a duo of electronic music improvisation and movement as part of the soundwalk. A soundwalk is a guided exploration of a site using listening focused skills. We will listen to how the site sounds, as we are moving through it. I believe that through listening we have a tool to define communities and ourselves. We also can use those tools to shape who we are and where we live. We will be listening for changes, interactions, conditions, weather, traffic, animals, insects, people, vehicles and other factors in what makes a place what it is. Our performances are an example of how we can creatively engage a soundscape through listening, movement, m...

Van Vlissingen Prairie (Video Album) a video and sound installation September 3 - 29, 2017 - Opening Saturday, September 9, 5-7pm at Ignition Project Space, 3839 W. Grand Ave. #1, Chicago, IL 60651 about: Van Vlissingen Prairie (Video Album) is a single channel video installation with projection and speaker placements featuring the sound ecology of Van Vlissingen Prairie within the South Deering community area on the South-Side of Chicago. South Deering is majority African-American and Latinx. Home to the Joseph H. Brown Iron and Steel Company in 1875( to be known later as Wisconsin Steel). South Deering was a major industrial hub attracting Irish, Welsh, and English workers at first, followed by Swedes and Germans. After 1900, new settlers arrived from Eastern and Southern Europe. African Americans and Mexicans came following the civil-rights laws banning discrimination in housing and employment. When the mills began shutting down, the community fell into a deep ...