I went to see Pauline and Ione last year when they performed in Melbourne for the Liquid Architecture festival. It was one of the most deeply spiritual and moving sound performances I have ever had the privilege of being part of.  I remember thinking "this is what the bardo sounds like!!"-

Nicole Skeltys of "The Jilted Brides"

Audience sings together in a 'Sonic Gesture of Peace'

By Greg Sandow

August 25, 2007

Wall Street Journal

Long ago, back in the early 1980s, I used to write about the outer edge of classical music -- events, often staged in lofts, in which music could be rapt and meditative, and was often improvised.

Sometimes it was dedicated to some higher cause, and one of the best composers doing that was Pauline Oliveros, who'd often ask her audience to sing, with magical results. You'd find yourself not just listening, but helping to create rich tapestries of sound, and you'd feel that you belonged to a wonderful community in which everybody felt a deep and soulful sense of peace. (Link to Full Article)

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The Deeps of Neptune

By Janet Hammock
May 28, 2006

On May 25th in the Neptune Studio Theatre in Halifax, Nova Scotia, suddenlyLISTEN  presented Pauline, Ione (spoken word), Norm Adams (cello and electronics), and his brother, John DS Adams (electronics -- or, as Lowell Cross and Tony Gnazzo  used to call the position of the person with the table of machines and wires back the 1960's:

Tonmeister !!)

suddenlyLISTEN is a small group of collaborators, its creation in 2000 the inspiration of Norm Adams.  It is a regular presenter of their collaborations since that date.

Marilyn and I travelled to Halifax from our home in Sackville, New Brunswick, for this presentation. It was a very special thing for us to simply walk into the space and listen --as "audience" --to our dearly beloved  band of listeners/sounders.

The Neptune was a great space for this: dark wood, black velvet drapes, a small comfortable theatre, and sensitive acoustics. It was packed -- a quiet, attentive, listening audience -- lots of young and old.

They billed the evening as  "One Piece in Four Movements -- Adapt Incandescent Luminous Diamond".

A boundary-less world was spun into existence, a world into which I was drawn as effortlessly and a totally as if it were years ago and I was sitting in the circle with my friends in the evening dusk of the Meditation Room at Rose Mountain.

At first I was looking as well as listening;  looking, now and then, seemed to happen spontaneously throughout the evening.  At first, when I looked, what I saw was each artist involved in the process of sounding and listening, finding their individual and collective ways to "be" in a world of their creation, where the present, the past, the future, and a mysterious fourth dimension, consciously exist together in continually changing relationship to each other.  It was thrilling to witness this as an "outsider" and simultaneously to recognize that I am an integral part of it.

As the piece rolled on, with me deeply inside of it, I think, in retrospect, that my brief  moments of "looking" somehow served to anchor me in the present, allowing my participation as a listener to go deeper. Now and again, my eyes would open of their own accord, sometimes as slits, softly, allowing in only dim shafts of light and shadow from the band;  and other times my eyes sprang open wide-- almost blinded by the glowing light, colour and movement of the band-- allowing its full visual impact for few moments, self-shaping my journey as I am sometimes shaped by the bright images of my dreams.

The strong beauty of Pauline's presence has grown, at the same time as it has softened. She glows from the inside out in a way that I have never before seen.  Her presence was complete in all 4 dimensions. She was operating wholly in all states of being.

Ione I had simply never seen in this way before!   I have never seen/heard Ione collaborate in this way before. Her deep presence, her deep movement, her vocal words/sounds, all emerged as blessings and were welcoming in the same way as I remember Ione welcoming us at Rose Mountain in the teepee at the end of each retreat, anointing each of us with her fragrant oils, offering to each of us our own Soul Card, and gracing each of us with her full presence. Her enormous warmth, her living in ritual, her total openness to the voices from the spheres, and her way of allowing these voices to flow through her and out of her entire body (mouth, face, hands, legs, feet, gesture) was

stunning.  She took me in to her self, and into the "piece".  Looking at, and listening to, Ione was, for me, the most astonishing and totally unanticipated part of the entire night. Of course, all of  the artists opened the doors wide for us to enter if we wished, and we were held.

Norm was dressed in a red shirt, like a dark fire in the velvet blackness and golden glow of the band.  The softness and love that I saw on his face was so beautiful.  To witness this was to receive a gift.  In his sounding Norm offered all that he is, and more than he is. He is becoming, and becoming, and becoming ...

And John!! -- whimsical and fascinating, a sprite, a dancer with sound!  I had never seen or heard John perform before.  His humour, his sense of wonder, his lightness of being, his joy, his delight, and his excitement at the continual unexpected unfolding, was palpable! He danced!  I was thrilled! John has a lot of the "old" performers in

him, and I was often transported back in time to the 60s and the many Theatre Pieces of Cage that I was privileged to witness, when Bandoneons reined and lightening flashes of red satin bellows flew like arrows through the air! When John Cage laughed and we looked around to find that the angel was him.  When David cracked a smile and

the world lighted up.  Those years.  I think it was John Adams' serious demeanor, thinly veiling a puckish devilment, that triggered the remembering for me! A delight.

So...I entered the world they offered me, and with them  rose and fell, floated into the highest spirit world, sank into the bottomless void of Neptune's Watery Deeps, existed in the moment of clear mountain streams with birds singing in the forest primeval, viewed NY from another planet and listened to the sounds of the city, explored the ear-opening spaces inside the pyramids of our minds, and the mysterious and exotic realms of ancient antiquities.  I almost stopped breathing at times existing in a space, in a blackness, that was not dark, but bright with luminous light. I existed at times cupped in the bejeweled hand of the spoken word artist, then offered up by her as a shared experience, a shared responsibility, and allowed to fly free. I was rooted in the moment, in the moment, in the moment, over and over again, in the presence of Pauline Oliveros, my mentor, my guide, my teacher.

I am grateful for everyone who made May 26th a night I will never forget.  Thank you, all.

love,

Janet

The Spirit of the '60s in the Internet Age