Jul 152023
 
29.06.23

birdcage

Encounters with ghosts, diasporic memories, dreams, and grandmothers. 

birdcage is an introspective multi-media and performance work that reflects on family, migration, and memory through written text (scores and poetry), lanterns, voice, and music. The publication is designed to be assembled into a simple lantern that holds the scores and poems and invites the viewer to engage with the content in a non-linear way. The scores, poems, and lanterns are also part of a live performance work for solo violin and electronic tape. Created in collaboration with violinist, photographer Ilana Waniuk.

dedicated to our grandmothers

Alex Mah – text scores, poems, concept
Ilana Waniuk- collaborator, violinist, photographer

Edition of 150
Riso printed and published by Moniker Press
ISBN 978-1-989428-13-9
Vancouver, BC – 2023

PURCHASE HERE

PERFORMANCE

(coming soon)

EVENTS

Soft Launch: Seattle Art Book Fair May 6-7, Washington Hall, Seattle WA

US Concert Premiere/Launch: San Diego May 26, 2023 – 5:00 pm  Conrad Prebys Music Center Experimental Theater, UC San Diego, CA

THANK YOUS

Special thanks to Felicia, my family, and EDAM.

created on the unceded, traditional Coast Salish Lands, including the Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh and Musqueam Nations.

Made possible with generous support from the Canada Council for the Arts and SOCAN Foundation

ARTIST BIOS

Alex Mah is an interdisciplinary artist, composer-musician, and performer in dance. He lives and practices on the unceded ancestral territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. His electroacoustic music investigates time and timbre and his written music explores embodied concepts such as chance, choice, and relationality in performance. He has performed in Canada, the U.S., and Germany and holds a BFA from SFU (Canada) and an MRes from Bath Spa University (U.K.).

Ilana Waniuk is a violinist with interests ranging from improvisation to visual arts.  She is a founding member and co-artistic director of Tkarón:to – based contemporary/experimental music ensemble and presenting organization Thin Edge New Music Collective and Balancing on the Edge (multidisciplinary production company merging contemporary music and circus arts). Most recently, she is the curator/performer behind ‘Filaments’, an evolving concert program dedicated to collaboratively co-creating interdisciplinary works for violin, electronics and multimedia. Ilana divides her time between Tkarón:to – traditional territory of the Anishinaabe, the Mississaugas of the Credit; the Haudenosaunee; and the Wendat peoples- and San Diego where she is a grateful guest on the lands of the Ipai-Tipai Kumeyaay Nation. Ilana is currently a doctoral candidate in contemporary performance at the University of California San Diego.