Join artists and creators Germaine Liu and Mark Zurawinski for an intimate, interactive sound workshop.
Liu and Zurawinski will use playful, group-based games to explore the objects and structure of The Bentway that inspired the composition of And With. Participants will be invited to count, clap, walk, stomp, tap, vocalize and play ball with the artists and each other, using their own bodies, objects, and the very architecture of the Gardiner as percussion instruments. The artists will also speak about their creative process of using found sounds recorded from The Bentway and the surrounding area.
After the workshop (or anytime) you are invited to take a walk and experience the fully curated soundscape of And With, via a self-guided online tour that brings the audio world of The Bentway to life. You can access the soundscape and map below.
The duration of the workshops is 30 minutes in length with a maximum capacity of 15 participants per workshop. Curious parties of all ages and abilities are invited to join. This is a rain or shine event, so please dress appropriately!
And With Soundscape
The Timber Amphitheatre
The theatre as an instrument. Hidden sounds from the nooks and crannies of the space brought to life – the clack of wooden seating, bass tones of metal railings, the squeal of scraped glass, accompanied by the roar of traffic.
The Wharf
Chime calls from cascaded railings of the once-upon-a-time dock. A distillate of chromatic sounds from inner piano strings that reveal a deep longing for the shoreline of the distant past. The lake leaves a fluid imprint acknowledged by the ears.
The Splash Pad
Water spouts activate the quiet intimacy of everyday objects, alongside a chorus of gurgles, sputters, and pitter patter.
The Landing
Cement framework, container of negative space, air passing through, revealed under the crumblings of saltworks. Metal conduit pipes hold a secret world of tones, textures, like the traffic, coming and going.
The Canon
A clamorous canon of words. A gentle slam-poetry mashup of text from the Bathurst and Fort York intersection, mixing slow-mo mode VHS tape, gregorian-chant-esque melismas, mingling with a spoken excerpt from Margaret Atwood’s poem The Planters (read from the Fort York branch library exterior).
The Playground
A percussive playground under the expressway. The built environment becomes an exploded drum set of lamppost snare drums, parking barrier bass drums, and singing metallic harmonics.
The Rocks
An everyday rock concert older than music for attentive ears and passers-by, honouring the sounds ranging from tiny raindrop-sized pebbles, to avocado-sized stones. Tapping, scraping, thumping over a bed of the swooshing expressive-expressway.
Canoe Landing Park
A gathering of different groups at play. A vibrant reflection of the sounds of community, intersecting rhythms of musical tag, hand clapping, basketball against pavement come together to paint a colourful sound parade.
;){kind=icon}
Scroll sideways to explore!About the Artists
Germaine Liu
Germaine Liu (b. Hong Kong) is a scenario-maker and percussionist based in Tkaronto. Liu is interested in exploring and sharing things she finds joyful in collaborative settings, with hopes that participants are open and willing to participate. She loves tactile, movement, sonic, and physical explorations of found objects and percussion.
Scenarios she composed include: Still Life, a 45-minute sounding installation for found objects; Puzzle Piece for prepared violin; Water Music, pieces for water and found objects; See and Draw exploring live-interactive notation with open instrumentation ensemble; Quarantine Playground, co-composed with Joe Sorbara using Zoom Video Communications Software as the score; and UnDrum-set Solo for Duo with collaborators – Susanna Hood, Bea Labikova, Stacy Lee, Elysha Poirier, and Mark Zurawinski.
Liu is also a co-founder and co-curator along with Parmela Attariwala and Nicole Rampersaud for Understory, a web-based, inter-provincial series dedicated to showcasing improvising artists working across Canada, and to building a network between the artists and their audiences.
In addition to her interest in sounds/movement/touch, she also makes jewellery as handmade by germaine.
MARK ZURAWINSKI
Mark Zurawinski is a Toronto-based percussionist, improviser, and sound designer with an eclectic palette, and fondness for left field music, which takes him to interesting and diverse sonic places – from contemplative chamber music to free-jazz freak outs, minimalist groove to digital noise. Mark is inspired by the tangibility of sound and has a keen interest in exploring the fluidity of texture and time, and the space where composition and improvisation meet.
A regular collaborator as a percussionist and sometimes band-leader in Toronto’s vibrant creative music scene, over the course of the pandemic Mark has been deepening his engagement with sound in the digital domain, focusing his attention on audio post-production and sound design for dance, theatre, and multimedia projects through collaborations with Understory, MOCA, UnDrum Festival, Indoor Jogging, Canadian Creative Music Network, and partner Germaine Liu.