NEWmatica is a riveting, site-specific, and interdisciplinary concert of new music and modern tap dance, where the venue itself is played as a musical instrument.
The towering, 26-storey Mill at the Britannia Mine Museum (a National Historic Site), will serve as the venue. Vancouver-based musicians Fringe Percussion (Jonathan Bernard, Martin Fisk, Brian Nesselroad and Daniel Tones), soprano Heather Pawsey, and contemporary tap dancers Danny Nielsen and Dayna Szyndrowski will showcase their individual musical expressions – and where they intersect – through rhythm, melody, harmony, text, and audience participation.
“Whenever possible, we love to engage our audiences through active participation in our concerts,” says Heather Pawsey, Artistic Director of Astrolabe Musik Theatre. “For NEWmatica, we’ve invited members of the public, through a series of workshops, to join us and literally play the Mill as a musical instrument itself in a series of musical motives used as transitions throughout the evening.”
This one-of-a-kind presentation will feature the music of iconic American composer John Cage (Third Construction; forever and sunsmell) as well as Canadian composers André Cormier (Tableau de Backyard), Jocelyn Morlock (Darwin’s Walken Fish; Train), and internationally acclaimed Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer (Tantrika), in celebration of his 80th birthday.
The Britannia Mine Museum’s Mill (one of North America’s last remaining gravity-fed concentrator mills) was chosen as a venue because of its cathedral-like height that soars into the air with 14,416 window panes. Its long and reverberant acoustic, punctuated by splashes of water trickling down its rock-face walls, allows for spatial placement that enables unamplified voice and tap to seamlessly integrate with the larger forces of a percussion quartet.
Steel beams and girders, round wooden platforms, concrete floors, and found objects will provide a variety of opportunities for the public to play the Mill as a percussive instrument itself.
Astrolabe Musik Theatre & the Britannia Mine Museum Co-Produce NEWmatica
Date: May 25, 7:30 pm
Venue: Britannia Mine Museum, Highway 99, Britannia Beach (45 min. north of Vancouver)
Tickets: Adults, $25; students and seniors, $18 (all tickets excluding service fee); available in advance online or in person at the museum
Dress Advisory: As the Mill is unheated, please dress warmly, with footwear suitable for uneven terrain.
Astrolabe Musik Theatre is passionate about commissioning and performing new works by Canadian artists in non-traditional venues.
