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Canadian Urbanism Uncovered

Events Guide: Parchetypes, Point Pleasant Park

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WHAT: Parchetypes, Public Performance – HRM Open Project
WHEN: Starting today, August 15th, 11am-1pm – September 11, 2011
WHERE: Point Pleasant Park
HOW MUCH: Free

HALIFAX, NSParchetypes is a site-specific performance created by artist, William Robinson for Point Pleasant Park and supported through the Halifax Regional Municipalities Open Projects program.

In concert with this project, Robinson explains,

Parchetypes is based on two real-life personalities who define the experience of attending Point Pleasant Park through their musical performances. These two parchetypes or fathers of the park use this extraordinary urban forest in order to nurture the park’s natural elements and entertain park-goers with their musical expressions.

The first I have encountered as an anonymous bag piper. His disembodied sounds are a common auditory occurrence and are part of the Point Pleasant Park experience on any given summer day. Like a living ghost nestled in the park’s forest this musical patriarch offers up his kinship with the park by leaving only trace chanters and drones from his pipes into the wind.

The second is an elder who provides an embodied auditory experience. Like a guardian to the park he plays fiddle music on his small portable cassette tape stereo at the Tower Road entrance. As the park’s proverbial gatekeeper he provides a transitional point by projecting a unique tone onto the park experience.

From Monday to Monday, starting today, August 15, and until August 22, an old upright piano will be installed in a secluded area in the Park. Robinson and other commissioned artists, including Sageev Oore, Eleanor King, Rich Aucoin, Robert Drisdelle, and Tim Crofts, will perform the instrument daily from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. As well, in early dawn, and intermittently throughout the day, Robinson will perform the piano. A bag piper will mark the beginning and end of this component of the project.

During the second phase of the project, from Monday, September 5, until Sunday, September 11, Robinson will act as the Park’s gatekeeper, and share the recorded sounds from a mix tape of week one’s performances on a portable cassette player.For the full schedule, please visit Parchetypes. Anyone and everyone is welcome to attend the scheduled performances as well as play the piano during park hours. Please view the location of the project in the park below:

For more information about Parchetypes including performance details and the artist’s blog, visit: http://parchetypes.blogspo​t.com/.

This project is supported through HRM Cultural Affairs’ Open Projects program. For additional information about upcoming projects and the program, contact: Siobhan Wiggans, Arts Programmer, (902) 490-5739, wiggans@halifax.ca.

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