Kathleen Irwin and Jeff Morton: PLAY

Additional Information

Opening Reception and Concert: Friday, June 14 at 7:00 pm
Artists Talk: Saturday, June 15 at 1:00 pm
Creative Composition for Piano Workshop: Saturday, June 15 from 2:00 to 4:00 pm
Full Moon Community Choir and Processional
Workshop: Saturday, June 22 from 2:00 to 4:00 pm, City Square Plaza, Downtown Regina
Processional: Sunday, June 23 from 9:00 to 10:00 pm, City Square Plaza, Downtown Regina

PLAY is an interactive installation developed in collaboration between theatre practitioner Kathleen Irwin of Regina's Knowhere Productions and composer and sound artist Jeff Morton, who is originally from Saskatchewan and is now based in Ottawa.

PLAY invites members of the public to literally play, with the installation of a shiny red upright piano outside the doors of RPL Central. Inside the otherwise spare gallery is another red upright piano, modified by Morton and theatrically staged by Irwin. Outfitted with speakers, a microphone, and a webcam, the camera records the sound and image of the gallery visitor when they sit down to play the piano. Operating on a delay, participants will hear the recorded sound of previous participants playing and see their images projected onto a screen made of multiple sheets of musical notation paper. Visitors' recorded sounds and images will join an expanding archive, and they will have the opportunity to contribute to an ever-changing improvised composition developed through iterative call-and-response.

On the evening of June 14, concurrent with the opening of PLAY, there will be a concert featuring live performances featuring new work by Ian Campbell (Regina), Kenn McLeod (Regina), Ellen Moffat (Saskatoon), Jeff Morton (Ottawa) and Alain Perron (Regina), who have developed experimental scores for and responses to this particular system. On June 22 and 23, coincident with the "supermoon," artist Amber Phelps Bondaroff (Regina) and Knowhere Productions will be facilitating a costume and instrument making workshop, processional, and community choir in response to PLAY's outdoor piano installation.

Amber Phelps Bondaroff and Knowhere Productions, Full Moon Choir, 2013.