GENOCIDE and IMPROVISATION
LISTENER and TELLER

The Telegram’s REVIEW

UPCOMING DATES: TBA 

PAST DATES:

Sept 16, 2019 HALIFAX book Launch (Halifax Central Library)

Nov 12, 2019 ST. JOHN’S, Suncor Hall (MUN Music) 12pm

Nov 14, 2019 GUELPH, Silence (46 Essex Street) 8pm

Nov 15, 2019 GUELPH, University of Guelph Library 3:30pm

Nov 23, 2019 REGINA, U of Regina, Faculty of Media Art Performance, Sound Studio (3737 Wascana Parkway, ED 242) 7pm

Feb 19, 2020 MONTREAL, Museum of Jewish Montreal (Concordia Chair in Canadian Jewish Studies) (4040 St. Laurent Boulevard) 7pm

COVID CANCELLED/POSTPONED Mar 14, 2020 OTTAWA, Carleton U (Helmut Kallmann Chair for Music in Canada), Carleton Dominion-Chalmers Centre (355 Cooper St.) 2pm
COVID CANCELLED/POSTPONED Mar 15, 2020 OTTAWA, Limmud Ottawa, Soloway Centre (21 Nadolny Sachs) 5:30pm-6:30pm
COVID CANCELLED/POSTPONED April 7, 2020 VANCOUVER, UBC, venue & time tba
COVID CANCELLED/POSTPONED June 2, 2020 TORONTO, Liberation 75 (educational workshops)

April 7, 2021 VIRTUAL ONLINE (& LIVE IN HALIFAX), St. Andrew’s United Church 7:30pm 

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GENOCIDE and IMPROVISATION: LISTENER and TELLER

An evolving intergenerational, interdisciplinary performance-talk, created and performed by son-mother duo, Daniel and Irene Oore, creatively and critically examining trauma, its transmission, and its transcendence.

Through improvisation they explore vulnerability and risk within these stories. Genocide and Improvisation: Listener and Teller is a conversation, within and across generations, cultures, languages, and disciplines, exploring memory and transcendence.

This event begins from an exploration of elements in Irene’s book “The Listener: In the Shadow of the Holocaust,” (U of Regina Press, 2019), from which she and her son Dani will also read and on which they will reflect. Dani will perform music, improvisations, original compositions, soundscapes, and more. 

BOOKING INQUIRIES: 

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DETAILED DESCRIPTION
An evolving intergenerational, interdisciplinary performance-talk, created and performed by son-mother duo, Drs. Daniel and Irene Oore, critically examining trauma, its transmission, and its creative transcendence.

The event integrates live music (winds, keyboard, electronics, and voice), soundscapes (using recent and archival recordings), words (spoken live or pre-recorded, by four generations of a post-holocaust family), projected images (original paintings, personal archival documents such as video testimony and false Christian and Nazi-issued identification papers), and physical drama (exploring the ways in which one had to hide their Jewishness —and pass as Aryan— during the Holocaust). These elements are related to Irene Oore’s book “The Listener: In the Shadow of the Holocaust,” (U of Regina Press, 2019), from which she and her son Dani will also read and on which they will reflect. Dani, will be performing the music, improvisations, original compositions, soundscapes, and dramatic-theatrical elements.

“The Listener” is a book telling the Holocaust stories that Irene’s mother “gifted” her about life as a Jew in Nazi-occupied Poland. It documents Irene’s wrestling with aspects of transmission —and ultimately creative transcendence— of this traumatic gift. Dani and his siblings seek creative and vulnerable paths that acknowledge and transcend the trauma.

“Genocide and Improvisation” reflects the juxtaposition of certain death and uncertain survival, of order and chaos, of despair and hope. Through improvisation we explore vulnerability and risk within these stories. Improvisation calls each one of us to participate, not as a spectator, but as a witness.

Genocide and Improvisation: Listener and Teller is a conversation: between mother, child, grandchild, great-grandchild, and siblings; and between descendants of different players in the historical narrative, reflecting on their shared past, and on their common present and future. These are conversations within and across generations, cultures, languages, and disciplines, exploring memory and transcendence. Dani and Irene wish to engage the voices of their audience in these conversations.