TAR SANDS SONGBOOK
Written, composed, and performed by Tanya Kalmanovitch
Join us for a special presentation of the TAR SANDS SONGBOOK, touring in November 2023 to sites and communities along the Trans-Mountain Pipeline route (AB/BC).
ABOUT THE PERFORMANCE
Created by musician, author and activist Tanya Kalmanovitch, TAR SANDS SONGBOOK is an 80-minute solo performance that combines field recordings, storytelling, personal history, and live violin and fiddle music to investigate our invisible relationships to oil.
Tanya Kalmanovitch knows these relationships all too well. Born in Fort McMurray, Canada, near the site of the world’s largest bitumen reservoir, she made her decision to become a musician as a teenager because “it had nothing to do with oil.” But when Fort McMurray shot to international attention as the flashpoint of clashes over energy, the environment, and the economy she was called to go home.
Tanya’s polyphonic piece weaves together storytelling, original research, field recordings, photography, and a live, improvised musical score. Her singular narrative gathers together the voices of First Nations elders, activists, oil patch workers and members of her own family into an arresting meditation on our complicity in extractivist culture. With a fiddle in one hand and a laptop computer filled with sounds and images from Fort McMurray in the other, Tanya’s first-hand stories, visuals, and sounds place audiences at the centre of a place they might not see, but that has everything to do with how we all live today.
Free to attend, with registration. Following each performance, there will be a community Q&A conversation.
PERFORMANCE DATES
Monday, November 20th — Star of the North Retreat Centre, St. Albert
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/731586774737
Tuesday, November 21st — Private House Concert, Edmonton
Wednesday, November 22nd — Entrance Ranch, Hinton
Contact Entrance Ranch to RSVP
Saturday, November 25th — Nicola Valley Institute of Technology, Merritt
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/754016261937?aff=oddtdtcreator
Monday, November 27th — University of the Fraser Valley, Abbotsford
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/tar-sands-songbook-tickets-732203519437
Tuesday, November 28th — Museum of Vancouver, Vancouver
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/734887226477
Wednesday, November 29th — Cranberry Commons Co-Housing, Burnaby
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/731603163757
We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Tishman Environment and Design Center, The New School’s Faculty Research Fund, Futures/Forward, and the MAP Fund.
For more information, please contact Associate Producer Louise Casemore at lcasemor@ualberta.ca
Watch the trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6B1TWOI0nU
Visit our website www.tarsandssongbook.com
