during my stay in valporaiso i was hosted by fernando godym and the tsonami collective - thank you all!, stayed with cynthia conrads - thank you cynthi! - and the workshop itself was hosted by the good people of balmaceda cultural centre - a special thanks to paola, plus sympathy as she lost her cat on my last day.
the city is a crazy, tumbledown place - very steep hills and obvious damage from earthquakes and housefires, but also a very welcoming place, with lots of good energy. it was much colder than i imagined it being, but not unbearable.
and the workshop itself went really well. the first day i ran the blindfolded walk and listening exercise, which caused some interesting discussions afterwards - everyone gets something very different from the experience, although always positive.
then fernando had a surprise radio interview for me to attend - thanks!! the presenter, ronald, was super nice though and made me feel very at ease, and had a good number of interesting questions.
thanks also to michel, one of the participants, who was visiting from santiago specifically to participate in the workshop. we had a walk around the city in the afternoon, round the docks and then up and around the hills back to cynthia's place.
the evening of the first workshop was my introduction to the local bars and nightlife - all work and no play, etc... so i got to try pisco, the national tipple of chile, which made for an interesting evening, leading us to end up at 'la mascara', a club that seems to play only music from the 80's from what i remember...
so things went a little more slowly for our second day of the workshop - i gave a demonstration of all the equipment i currently use to record sound, and then we took a walk to an old prison that has been converted into a cultural centre. it was a good place to record small sounds, as it is high in the hills above the city. we spent around an hour exploring the space and then headed back to balmaceda so everyone could play their 'favourite' recording of the day. some very nice sounds were captured by the team!
that afternoon i got to sample another chilean speciality, a dish called chorrillana - perfect for those days when you have been dragged to an 80's nightclub the night before...
the third day of the workshop i introduced the team to 'audacity' - a free composition program that is easy to use. i demonstrated the various editing techniques, some effects, and then let them get to work on thier own pieces. the results were very interesting, in that most of them were referential to the site and it's past.
we spent around an hour setting up the sound system for the concert in the evening and then took a trip over the mountains to a small beach town for a lunch of amazing seafood empanadas and then a nice walk on the beach where we bumped into ronald once again.
back to balmaceda, where i had a nice sized audience for what turned out to be a solo show - i was expecting fernando and a saxophonist to join me. we plunged the room into darkness and then i played a 4 channel piece that i am developing over the year. i also had a surprise up my sleeve - using a violin bow on an old metal pala (like a dustpan with a long handle), i moved around the audience, creating more sound movement and interacting with them and the space more.
i will thank previous collaborators john grzinich and jonathan coleclough, among many others, for leading my work in this direction...
the following day i took the bus with michel back to santiago, where i then met with musician paola lazo - we went for a coffee and chat and then i found that the concert i was to play there started at 6! i dragged all my luggage to the site of 'producta mutante', ervo perez's concert series. the events are run in a large room in a house, and the night was good and varied, with two guys playing droney stuff to begin with, then an improv trio, with me finishing up the night. once again i used a combination of recorded sound and objects, finding some small pieces of terracotta tile in a cup. i started to rattle some around in my hands, and then moved around the room with them - then gave some to audience members, motioning for them to continue to rattle them... i think i gave 6 people handfuls of tiles, all around the house, which sounded really nice and worked well in engaging the audience a little more.
rather than spend the night at ervo's sleeping in a room with two guys from cordoba, i ended up staying at paola's place. this was great as we hadn't had much time to chat and for me to hear her music.
many thanks once again to paola, and to ervo and his housemates for a brief but very nice visit to santiago.
on the monday i flew back to buenos aires to meet up with juan jose calarco for dinner - which ended up being the biggest piece of cow i think i have ever eaten! sorry for the vegetarians reading this, but it was incredible!
and yesterday i spent the day walking around the centro, trying to find replacement boots - my trusty magnums were falling to pieces! - and visit the auditorium that will host 'active crossover: buenos aires' on friday. a good sized space, although it seems i have to play from the stage, which i don't really like doing any more - we'll see what can be done about that... oh, and ended up walking to another city, avellaneda, through a mix-up with directions.
today i will revisit the city airport to reclaim my leatherman that i stupidly left in my backpack when flying to chile and make some preparations for the performance on friday using some sounds i recorded on the roof of the cia, where i'm staying.
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