August 20th to August 23rd, 2008

"The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself."   - Henry Miller

Building on the past two years of highly successful presentations, Lulu has become a bridge between a small, rural community and a world of regional, national and international performers. With 'The Elements: A Festival of Nature in Performance', Lulu aims to expand this approach by commissioning a group of established Canadian contemporary artists to create and present new works that respond to the extraordinary beauty of this location. Our aim is to invite our audiences to witness the process of creation and the presentations that reflect their environment in an inclusive, transformational approach - a 'terrestrial symposium' that combines sound art, installation work, digital media and performance in the community.

Scheduled to take place over a week in the summer of 2008, the festival will engage residents and visitors to Gabriola through installations, performances, master classes, and workshops. It will create the opportunity to explore the contrasting aspects that characterize a community like ours - the tension between rural life and urban growth, between traditional cultures and the technological developments that transform the very experience of the living environment. The work of the artists we have selected engage these questions in rigorous and poetic ways that complement one another, and explore how our senses navigate a perceptual world where the natural and "man made" interact in a kind of continuous sensory counterpoint.

Lulu has commissioned five composers, sound artists and video artists internationally renowned for their work in acoustic and art ecology, field recording, new media, sound and video installation, and found sound. They are:

Gordon Monahan (www.gordonmonahan.com)

Gordon Monahan's works for piano, loudspeakers, video, kinetic sculpture, and computer-controlled sound environments span various genres from avant-garde concert music to multi-media installation and sound art. As a composer and sound artist, he juxtaposes the quantitative and qualitative aspects of natural acoustical phenomena with elements of media technology, environment, architecture, popular culture, and live performance.

Darren Copeland (www.darrencopeland.net)

Darren Copeland is an electroacoustic composer and sound designer who has produced work since 1985 for concerts, radio, theatre, dance, and site-specific installation. He writes:

"Without conscientious efforts to approach environmental sounds with some imagination and a sensitive social awareness, the language for coping with the everyday sound world will remain crude and ineffectual. If sound shapes people's experience in the world, than a vocabulary for documenting this interrelationship needs to develop."

Andreas Kahre (www.andreaskahre.net)

Andreas Kahre is an interdisciplinary artist, designer, writer, and musician, whose work involves images, sound and text in many different configurations. He has been involved in the creation of more than a hundred interdisciplinary projects with theatre, dance and music ensembles across Canada, and specializes in sited interdisciplinary performance. His collaborative project with Darren Copeland explore the aural, historical and lyrical dimension of the underwater domain by combining hydrophone recording, text, and sound processing to create interactive 'performance installations using holosonic speaker systems -- tightly focused beams of sound that work like audio spotlights. Recent examples include a shortlisted proposal for Toronto's Harbourfront festival and a commission for Deutschlandradio Kultur in Berlin scheduled for 2008

Kathy Kennedy (www.kathykennedy.ca) 

Kathy Kennedy is a sound artist with a background in classical singing. Her art practice generally involves the voice and issues of interface with technology, often using telephony or radio. She is also involved in community art, and is a founder of the digital media center for women in Canada, Studio XX, as well as the innovative choral group for women Choeur Maha. Her large scale sonic installation/performances for up to 100 singers and radio, called "sonic choreographies," have been performed internationally including the inauguration of the Vancouver New Public Library and at the Lincoln Center's Out of Doors Series.

Chris Welsby (http://www.sfu.ca/~welsby)

Chris Welsby has been making and exhibiting work since 1969. His films and film/video installations have been exhibited internationally, at several major galleries. He writes:

  "In my single screen films and single channel videos the mechanics of film and video interact with the landscape in such a way that elemental processes--such as changes in light, the rise and fall of the tide or changes in wind direction--are given the space and time to participate in the process of representation. The resulting sequences of images make it possible to envisage a relationship between technology and nature based on principles other than exploitation and domination."

For more information, please contact Leah Hokanson at 250.247.9854 or at info@luluperformingarts.ca

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