Stutter on screen posted on November 1st, 2009
Now that Bravo! TV has screened our little short nationally we can share it with you here online and in full format. Enjoy!
Stutter from Artist Bloc on Vimeo.
STUTTER
Jordan Shoot a Wrap! posted on October 7th, 2009
Completed shoot for an NFB (National Film Board of Canada) interactive documentary on poet Jordan Scott. We captured Jordan reading to an audience and interviewed him on his experience growing up with a stutter and how they relate to the poems in his book Blert. All of this will be weaved into a flash based interface. I’m pretty excited about the concept we have come up with. Check back later to find a link to the work.
Stutter Airdate posted on October 5th, 2009
“Stutter” will be airing on an upcoming episode of “Bravo!FACT Presents” at 7:30 pm ET/4:30 pm PT, Sunday 4 October 2009 on Bravo!
The episode will be re-run at 8:00 pm ET/5:00 pm PT Friday 9 October and 8:00 am ET/5:00 am PT Saturday 10 October on Bravo!. It will also air on ‘A’ in Victoria BC on Saturday 10 October at 6:30 pm & 11:00 pm local time; and in Ontario on ‘A’ in Barrie, London, Windsor, and Wingham on Saturday 10 October at 6:30 pm local time, and in Ottawa 11:00 pm local time on Saturday 10 October at 6:30 pm.
As we were in Montreal on Sunday, wrapping up The Happiness Project, please watch it with us at 8:00 pm ET/5:00 pm PT Friday 9 October! Location TBD.
Stutter - after show! posted on June 3rd, 2009
Stutter Live - BANG! posted on May 22nd, 2009
The Stutter show happened last night and it was magical! We had a great packed house and a wonderful performance by Jordan and the Element Choir! We could not have asked for a more perfect evening.
Thank you all who came out!
Mouth implies choir, choir mimics mouth….
The Element Choir and poet Jordan Scott collaborate for an evening of disfluency and sonic gyrations. Performing from Blert (Coach House Books, 2008), which explores the poetics of stuttering, Scott’s own disjunctive speech will collide, inhabit and wind through the rhythmical and extended voice techniques of the Elemental Choir. The resulting noise will stretch language into strange and rare permutations – challenging and exploring how physicality impacts communication.
JORDAN SCOTT is the author of Silt (New Star Books, 2005) and Blert (Coach House Books, 2008). Silt was nominated for the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. In the fall of 2006, Jordan worked on the final sections of Blert while acting as a writer in residence at the International Writers’ and Translators’ Centre in Rhodes, Greece. In 2008, Blert was nominated for an Expozine Award. In the spring of 2009, a short film based on Blert will appear on the Bravo! network. Jordan lives and works in Mount Pleasant, Vancouver BC. He spends the spring and summer slinging canoes at Pitt Lake — the largest freshwater tidal lake in North America.
THE ELEMENT CHOIR is an improvising choir from Toronto led by vocalist Christine Duncan. This is a group that works with both structured and non-structured elements, based primarily on a system of conduction cues. As an ensemble they explore textural and timbral sound qualities, soundscapes, rhythmic patterns, sound poetry, group and individual composition ideas, musical genre interplay and extended voice techniques. This cinematic approach to group vocalizing presents both tonal and non-tonal material in a constantly evolving and “in the moment” sonic environment.
OPENER
NILAN PERERA is a sonic explorer and improviser whose work expands the language and techniques of experimental electric guitar performance, while attending to the legacy of 20th-century tradition established by such pioneers as Harry Partch and Fred Frith. Perera’s unusual approach to his instrument has earned him a reputation as one of Toronto’s most innovative experimentalists. He plays in a number of cutting-edge ensembles — including Handslang, The Excalceolators, Wiens-Perera Duo and NOMA — and has performed at the Vancouver International Jazz Festival, Toronto International Jazz Festival, for Sound Image Theatre, Autumn Leaf Performance, the Synaptic-Circus project, and with Peter Chin, Anne Marie Hood, and Susanna Hood.
He has been making music and creating trouble (and vice versa) in Toronto and the world for over 20 years now and is happy to be continuing to do both. He collaborates with dancers, spoken word artists, vegetable gardens, writes articles for various publications, plays with some of the best musicians on the planet and has recently taken up deer hunting to supplement his larder.
Generously Supported by OAC and TAC and Co-presented with The Music Gallery.
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Thursday, May 21, 2009
7:00pm - 10:00pm
Music Gallery - www.musicgallery.org
197 John Street, Toronto, M5T1X6 at Stephanie Street
Toronto, ON
Tickets are $10 at the door.
Student and Starving Artist discount applies.
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MUSIC GALLERY
www.musicgallery.org/
ELEMENT CHOIR
www.barnyardrecords.com/
www.myspace.com/elementchoir
COACH HOUSE BOOKS
www.chbooks.com/events
JORDAN SCOTT - BLERT
http://www.chbooks.com/catalogue/blert
www.humdansoundart.ca/people.html
www.sarahpeebles.net/smash.htm
posted on December 30th, 2008
THURSDAY MAY 21 2009 @ THE MUSIC GALLERY, TORONTO
BE THERE TO EXPERIENCE IT LIVE!
FEATURING THE POETRY OF JORDAN SCOTT &
THE SOUNDS OF THE ELEMENT CHOIR.
STUTTER: THE PERFORMANCE
Jordan Scott is a poet who stutters. The combination of his dis-fluency and the jagged alliterations of his poetry evoke a level of communication that is beyond words. Jordan will read his poetry into a microphone, which will feed the signal through an oscilloscope, a device that uses a cathode-ray tube to depict periodic changes in an electric quantity, in this case sound, and displays them on screen. The oscilloscope’s translated waveforms will then projected onto multiple screens, placed throughout the performance space, which will in turn be interpreted by improv musicians.
As the musicians and singers perform, Jordan is reading his poetry, the jarred speech and patter of the oscilloscope waves are mirrored and mimicked, the musicians play arhythmically and in discordance, but there are moments when the sounds are harmonic. Music is therapy for one who stutters, singing along with a chorus or humming words, all promote fluency. By paring music with the stutter, a different level of communication erupts, one that is all at once harmonious, disquieting, and laden with pure noise.
His voice is fed through a microphone to the oscillosope machine which is placed in the Music gallery church hall. This is in turn projected onto the multiple screens. By isolating his stuttered voice, it becomes removed from the body, allowing the music authority over pace and rhythm. Jordan embodies this struggle on a daily basis. As he stutters, his speech is like the jagged line from the projection of the oscilloscope. The wiring of his brain is not letting him speak the words that are already formulated in his mind.
The musicians interpret the jagged lines as well as the cues from the conductor. The chaos of the sounds is symbolic of the stuttered speech of the poet, while the moments, which are in harmony are reflective of Jordan’s ability to overcome the stuttered speech and speak fluently. The jarring music representing stuttered speech and the harmonic music representing the fluency with which he can speak.
FILM
Based on Jordan Scott’s poetry we created a short film supported by the Bravo! FACT foundation in which musicians (THE WOODCHOPPERS GUILD) interpreted his words by observing the projections of the oscillations created by his voice. We also fictionalized scenes from Jordan’s childhood and included them in the film.
