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IN SEARCH OF GIANTS

Ali is currently collaborating with colleague/mentor, Dr. Von H. Washington (retired Drama Professor from the University of Western Michigan and renowned playwright, actor and director) on a theatre project about their exploration of Black and White Abolitionists who worked on the Underground Railroad, including the great Henry Bibb, and her own ancestors, Pamela and Dr. Nathan Thomas. The world premier of this work was held on November 2015 at the Ladies’ Library in the town of Schoolcraft, Michigan, where the house belonging to Ali’s ancestors is now a National Historic Site and Museum.

Performances and showcases in Michigan and Ontario, Canada. This work was performed in:

Thursday, January 28th, 2016 at 7:30pm: Theatrical reading at the Arthur Miller Theatre on University of Michigan’s North Campus, in Ann Arbor, MI. Admission Free

Friday, February 12th, 2016 at 7pm and Saturday, February 13th, 2016 at 4pm: Theatrical reading at Washington Gardner High School in Albion, MI

Sunday, February 21st, 2016 at 3pm & 6pm: Theatrical reading at the Epic Theatre in Kalamazoo, MI

Friday, April 15th and Saturday, April 16th, 2016 at 8pm: Showcase at the Annex Theatre in Toronto, ON.

Saturday, May 27th, 2017 at 8pm: Theatrical reading at Mackenzie Hall Cultural Centre in Windsor, ON.

General Media Release

For information and bookings:

in the US, please contact:

Washington Productions, Inc.
P.O. Box 3253, Kalamazoo, MI 49003-3253
Attn:    Von H. Washington, Ph.D.
Phone: 269-342-7301

 in Canada, please contact:

Ali Garrison by clicking here

 

 

In Search of Giants

(Drama, Song and the Spoken Word)

written and directed by Dr. Von H. Washington, Sr.

Saturday, May 27th,  2017 – 8pm, Mackenzie Hall Cultural Centre, 3277 Sandwich St., Windsor, Ontario.  (519) 255-7600

Toronto artist, producer and mezzo-soprano, Ali Garrison, has teamed up with her American colleague, Dr. Von H. Washington, Sr., a renowned theatre professional for forty years, to bring their well-received theatre presentation, In Search of Giants to Windsor, Ontario.

This production, about a personal journey leading to the discovery of  three significant leaders on the Underground Railroad, has been playing to full houses and standing ovations since it began touring Michigan in November 2015. There have been numerous transnational performances since, along Michigan and Ontario Underground Railroad routes, including Schoolcraft, Kalamazoo, Albion, Ypsilanti, Ann Arbor and Toronto. Next on its Freedom-Seeking Tour, In Search of Giants comes to Old Sandwich Town (now part of Windsor), Ontario, at the old courthouse, MacKenzie Hall Cultural Centre on May 27th, 2017. This important village along the Detroit River was where so many refugees from slavery settled, including one of our most significant Giants, the great Abolitionist, Henry Bibb.

In Search of Giants is a staged dramatic reading in the traditional style of the Afrikan Griot, but uses more than one storyteller. This presentation features an international cast of modern-day American and Canadian storytellers. Among them are Washington and Garrison, with Von Washington, Jr., Bianca Washington, Duff MacDonald. Alicia Payne, Tim Smith and accomplished professional baritone Romeo Phillips. Musicians, Kwanza Msingwana and Darryl Huggins will open the evening.

Garrison, who in this production sings and plays both herself and her own great, great, great grandmother,  shares these thoughts: “In Search of Giants is a powerful and moving piece about how when we explore the past, we understand ourselves better, which inspires a more informed future. I spent last year researching with Dr. Washington, digging deep into ancestral roots. There, we found a wellspring of Abolitionist history with narratives of my three greats grandparents, Dr. Nathan Thomas and Freedom Seeker Henry Bibb. To be able to bring these explorations to Old Sandwich Town, where so much of this transnational history continued to play out, is thrilling.”

In an informational release Washington writes, “As an African American, I learned a long time ago that I had to find my own history because those who enslaved my ancestors were set on keeping the descendants of the enslaved ignorant of their past. However I also learned that, if I didn’t know, neither did they. I have made it my duty to help us all learn about the true Giants of our African, American, and Canadian past.”

The Synopsis

In a perpetual search for information about his ancestral past, a local college professor makes several unannounced visits to the Underground Railroad Museum in Schoolcraft, Michigan. His first visit, revealing and mysterious, brings him closer to understanding the struggles of the conductor of the house, Dr. Nathan Thomas, a Quaker by birthright. In an unrelated meeting, the Professor comes into contact with a descendant of the Thomas family and learns more about Dr. Thomas’ wife, Pamela, and the Freedom Seeker and fellow Abolitionist, Henry Bibb, who visited the Thomas house in 1844 and went on to settle in Canada.  Doc also learns about a conjuring technique and a narrative story that was written by Bibb himself before his death in 1854. During a second visit to the museum, the professor goes to the room where hundreds of enslaved ancestors were hidden while waiting to go on to freedom; and there, to his surprise, he successfully conjures the spirits of Henry Bibb and others who join in to aid him in telling their stories of running toward freedom on the Underground Railroad.

 

The Why the Sea is Salty Project

“Do you know where you begin?  In the sky? In the sea?”
“What’s the difference, my dear?”

The Why the Sea is Salty Project is a re-voicing and popularization of an ancient Scandinavian myth about twin giantesses (!!) through interdisciplinary collaborations.

This multi-phased project is a led collaboration of four culturally diverse professional artists working within their communities to create a set of interdisciplinary works, re-inventing and popularizing this ancient Scandinavian myth through theatre, literature, improvisation, graphics, singing/percussion, soundscapes, puppetry, projections and visual art.

“Why the Sea is Salty” is an in-depth exploration of a marvelous, half-forgotten Scandinavian myth about Menja and Fenja, twin Giantesses who are enslaved to turn the magic millwheel, Grotti.

By awakening and bringing to light new perspectives on this story we seek to help our communities to access the treasure troves of possibilities that are buried just beneath the surface of our collective consciousness.

This myth is alive, a process of discovery for all participants. We are female artists unconfined by traditional specializations in art, though we are highly trained and experienced in our media. Through intuitive, educative, empowering, and co-operative methods we seek creative, professional, personal and inter-personal transformation.

COLLABORATIONS INCLUDE

• • facilitating with gifted youth apprentices to create and publish a comic book series, called “The Further Adventures of Menja and Fenja” based on this myth.

• • recording a set of choral improvisations with the professional vocal ensemble, the Nathaniel Dett Chorale. These recordings will be used as live soundtracks for a set of animated paintings shown during the workshop presentation.

• • gifted youth apprentices recruited to learn alongside the artists as we ourselves learn about and develop these works.

• • a call to artists of all disciplines to create works in response to this myth.

• • working with performers, and singers to uncover insights into the myriad emotions and psyches of the characters within the myth.

• • creating and publishing a picture book of this telling of the myth.

• • an online collaborative composition.

• Viking Fair fundraiser featuring Norse traditions and artwork created in response to this myth

THE COLLABORATORS

Artists involved in the collaboration have been:

Leslie Ashton, puppeteer, stage designer

Ali Garrison, project leader, writer, music creator, performer, producer.

Anne-Marie Hood, soundscape artist, music creator, performer (“The Weather”)

Mosa Neshamá McNeilly, visual artist, set painter, projectionist.

Other contributers have included:

Barbara Croall, Isabelle Beaudoin, Marco Cinello, Jo Doughty, Mark Hazen, John Scully-Ashton, Moya Garrison-Msingwana, Myrna Scully-Ashton, Peter Mundinger, Chris Jääskeläinen, Neema Bickersteth, Andrew Gunpath, the Nathaniel Dett Chorale, Michelle-Lynn Goodfellow, Katy Harmer, Mary Alton, Manon Beaudoin, Colin Heath, Ariel Fielding, Eileen Eng, and Vinnie Sestito.

This project was made possible by generous support from the following:

Ontario Arts Council

The Canada Council for the Arts

The Waters

American Apparel Community Scholarship

 

MOSAIC CD 

Stay tuned for Ali’s solo debut album, MOSAIC coming soon for purchase through this website.

THE MOSAIC DREAM

My family and a smattering of my friends are gathered with me at my Mother’s grand “summer estate” which hangs right over the St. Lawrence Riverwhere it is broadest. We are congregated in “the conservatory”- the music salon. It is spacious and high-ceilinged with French latticed doors and windows opening onto balconies over-looking the river. It is a summer evening. Candles light the room, illuminating richly woven tapestries and Persian rugs on the walls and floor. There are semi–precious stones inlaid in elaborate mosaics on the table-tops and mantle and floors; jade, lapis lazuli, hermatite, amber, obsidian, turquoise, malachite, alexandrite and rose quartz. The designs are exquisite – each stone is unique, different and intriguing for its imperfections. I feel myself move in to study them up close…the colours soak into me, imbuing me, nourishing me. I completely understand that each piece contributes to a whole design and that this technicolour moment, this dream vision, is making a deep impression on my developing philosophy and aesthetic.

Please join me in exploring this dream mosaic of songs, each rare and beautiful in their diversity and stories. It is like a puzzle to figure out how each eclectic set of pieces interlocks with those around it. And at the end, perhaps together, both performer and listener will be able to stand before a complete picture, a common image.

CD will be available for online purchase soon. To receive notices about this date and more, please sign up for Ali’s Giddy Bohemian Newsletter here.

Songs From Nancy’s Wharf

IMPROVISATIONS WITH NAN – WHEN GOD WAS A WOMAN 

“You know how it is. Sometimes 

we plan a trip to one place, 

but something takes us to another.” ~ from the Master, Rumi 

 I had one particular 48 hours that last week Downeast in 2013 when I finally understood why that mysterious voice called me to jump through hoops of fire to make this rather long, arduous trip. For the life of me, I couldn’t quite figure out where such a overpoweringly strong compulsion to go to Maine that year came from. It seemed so much more urgent than my usual desire to go commune with Mama Nature and my dear friends in that area. But being a musician, teacher AND an improviser, I’ve grown accustomed to obeying and submitting to intuition and the nudges of the angels, muses and El Duende. After a while, we learn not to waste time questioning those indicators. Just follow it and see what strange events unfold…and hope to hell that we have enough accumulated acumen to deal with the ensuing experiences. 

Nan Bennett, was an extraordinary improvising pianist in her early eighties (think a feminine, intuitive version of Keith Jarrett and Bill Evans), who I had known for many years musically and otherwise. She and I played and exquisite duet improv session (caught on a Zoom recorder for posterity) on the Steinway at her wharf in Cutler. It was really more like a series of musical intuitions/conversations. 

Nan’s musings were always harmonious and completely approachable, while containing enough of the unpredictable to keep one from making assumptions. We had driven out to her wharf in Cutler, which is practically at the edge of the earth, a classic, quaint safe-harbour with lobster boats, seaweed and seagulls. Everything was softened by the damp and the fog that hung over the village. 

She and I often improvised together in the context of larger ensembles over the past two decades. In fact, it was she who first introduced me to the wonderful improvisers in the Downeast area. We had invited a few of our partners in crime from the notorious, intrepid Les Trois Etoiles, out for an intimate, impromptu session at her place. George Murray, a friend of hers, had brought his recorder to try to make a decent field recording of our afternoon. We waited for the others to show, except that they couldn’t or didn’t. So we decided to do a series of duets instead. She has a beautiful old Steinway in a large room that used to be the freezer where they stored all the fish!

She hardly ever needs to tune the piano because it keeps perfectly moist, living like that, directly over the water. It has a rich, mellow tone. I love pianos that have distinct personalities. It’s pure pleasure to sing with its salt-soaked sonorousness. 

We embarked on our first warmup co-composition, feeling out how best to balance, given our lack of a proper setup with vocal and piano mics. It became immediately apparent to both of us and George, that we had stumbled upon a very special collaboration. We laughed and decided to call the session “When God Was a Woman“, the title of one of the books that George was using to prop up the recorder. 

Nan and I had a natural, relaxed camaraderie which translated fluently to our improvising. We were co-composing, conversing melodically and harmonically, listening carefully, trading ideas back and forth, weaving a rich tapestry of progressions in the moment. We both seem to go into an altered state and after each piece, it felt like we were returning from far off other worlds that we had visited, not separately, but together. 

By the third piece, we had started to hit our stride and I decided I needed to bring in words. I walked over to her bookshelves and scanned the titles. My eyes lit on one and I pulled it out. It was an anthology of Chinese poetry, translated into English, with delicate, elegant illustrations. I leafed through it looking for something summerish while Nan introduced her next theme. Then I joined her using the text that I chose. It’s called Through Summer Rain (see the Soundcloud link to the complete set). Do listen with headphones and watch the levels…it’s a fairly simple field recording and of course, carries all the perfectly imperfect wonders of a single-take performance). 

https://soundcloud.com/aligarrison/sets/nan-and-ali-duet 

“Through morning rain come cries of flower vendors in the lane; 

Dew on the petals; mushrooms by the trees; 

Along the doorstep, moss. 

A tiny snail is creeping up the wall, 

Through summer rain.” 

-Lin Ken, 20th Century 

When we had finished the song we looked at each other in mutual astonishment. What had we just discovered? As it does in conventional composition, using poetry is a way of bringing more meaning and symbol into the melodic explorations and it solidifies the musical phrase structures.

Eager to experiment more, I randomly pulled another book, this time Gibran’s The Prophet, parts of which I know very well. Without looking I opened to a page. There lay the following words: 

“What we long for and cannot attain, is dearer than what we have already attained.” What unfolded in this take was pure spontaneous inspiration. 

I decided then and there that I had to bring Nan up to Toronto to play with me on my next concert (which was May 2014 at Gallery 345). The name of the concert I had ALREADY decided earlier that summer was “Longing & Belonging”. How’s THAT for synchronicity? Well, in the end, Nan was not well enough to make it and had to back out, saying “Anyway, I never play the same thing twice!” 

The third piece you’ll hear, really has beautiful, organic form. It came from a book on English Gardening. I blindly picked a poem by Vita Sackville-West (lover and member of Woolf’s Bloomsbury Group and supposedly the inspiration for her Orlando). 

“She walks among the loveliness she made,Between the apple-blossom and the water 

She walks among the patterned pied brocade, 

Each flower her son, and every tree her daughter.” 

-Vita Sackville-West from “The Island”, in Bulletin of the Garden Club of America (1929), p. 1, also in Collected Poems (1934), p. 54 

Our pieces have been transcribed now and will enter into the canon of rare vocal literature co-composed via improvisation. These are art songs of the highest calibre. At some point, there will be an EP recorded of all of them, with the wonderful Joy Brown at the piano. It takes a special pianist to recreate these songs with Nan’s ease and that feeling of almost predestined music just falling out of her. 

I hope that you will find as much pure pleasure and awe listening to these spontaneous utterances (now suspended in time) as we did creating them. It startles me, how much structure they have for being spun in a stream of consciousness state. I suppose that after a lifetime of making and absorbing music, these things become instinctive.

Nancy (Nan, Naja) Bennett passed away in 2019

The Eastern Gate

Ali will create a small film of The Eastern Gate (Nancy Bennett and Ali Garrison co-improvising composers). 

The Story

In August 2014 when I was again staying with dear friend and fellow improviser, eighty year-old pianist Nancy Bennet. We decided to do another free improv session in her wharf studio in Cutler, Maine. We used this poem to improvise on. I was encouraging her to continue to play even as she has been dealing with a debilitating and tragic genetic condition that is affecting her fingers. This is the beauty of free improvisation, you come to it as you are. This poem is by an anonymous Chinese poet from the 1st century BC. We loved it so much we did three free improvisations on it. The last recording was the best. Were able to finally capture its beautiful and sad poignancy. It comes from a small book that I picked off Nancy’s bookshelf randomly, called The Moment of Wonder: A Collection of Chinese and Japanese Poetry – edited by Richard Lewis (The Dial Press) 

The Eastern Gate: 

I went out at the Eastern Gate:

I never thought to return.

But I came back to the gate with my heart full of sorrow.

There was not a peck of rice in the bin:

There was not a coat hanging on the pegs.

So I took my sword and went towards the gate.

My wife and child clutched at my coat and wept:

“Some people want to be rich and grand:

I only want to share my porridge with you.

Above, we have the blue waves of the sky:

Below, the yellow face of this little child.”

“Dear wife, I cannot stay.

Soon it will be too late.

When one is growing old

One cannot put things off.” -Anon. (1st. c B.C.)

P.S. We made our friend George Murray, the recording engineer, cry.