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Roxanne Nesbitt (installation, voice, piano)
Ben Brown (ceramics, percussion)
Parmela Attariwala (viola)
Moon Bells / Symbiotic extends Roxanne Nesbitt’s ongoing explorations of sonic timbre and texture through handmade ceramic percussion and altered instruments. Part installation, part performance, audience members will enter into a space that is shaped by the suspended ceramic sculptural pieces. The visual suggestion of weightlessness and levity blends with sound layers coaxed from the sculptural instruments creating a subtly shifting sonic and material translucency.
The performance installation features two new distinct bodies of ceramic instruments made by Nesbitt. The moon bells are hanging spinning translucent resonant panels designed using ratios from just intonation and warped through the ceramic process in the kiln. Symbiotic Instruments is an on-going project exploring interactions between traditional and experimental instruments.
The performance features Roxanne Nesbitt performing ceramics and piano, Ben Brown on ceramics and Parmela Attariwala on viola. There will be an in-theatre artist chat at 7:15pm, before the performance.
The performance will take place in approximately 15 min increments. The audience is invited to change locations between performances to experience the work from different perspectives.
Hanging ceramic bells were made by Roxanne Nesbitt at the European Keramic Work Centre in Oisterwijk, Netherlands. Bells used as piano preparations were made at the same facility and at Vancouver Ceramics Studio.
Trained as an architect and orchestral bassist, Roxanne Nesbitt is an interdisciplinary artist, exploring the space between sound and design. Her research includes experimental instrument design, composition, improvisation, sound installation, and performance.
Roxanne collaborates with musicians, dancers and choreographers as a performer and composer. She has premiered new compositions at the Western Front and PuSh festival in Vancouver, Array Space in Toronto, and Bauchhund in Berlin. Roxanne fronts her own band, Graftician and is a member of the improvised duo, Why Choir alongside award winning drummer Ben Brown.
I am a mover and shaker. I am the founder of Music And Movement Mondays (MAMM). As a drummer, I have received a Juno Award with my group, Pugs and Crows.
Currently, I’m exploring principles of sound felt in the body and researching a series of designed percussion instruments crafted by Roxanne Nesbitt. With these, I am trying to push the boundaries of drumming by using movement to communicate the energy of sound—helping an audience hear differently by creating and breaking expectations for a sound through gesture.
Parmela Attariwala has spent her life pursuing a fascination with sound; with its power to evoke
metaphor and captivate the imagination. As a child nurtured in the dual—and often dueling—spirits of Western individualism and South Asian social conservatism, the violin became her unfettered language. Eventually, music and sound became the modes by which she explored the commonalities of human experience and the circumscriptions of ethnocultural particularity.
Parmela holds degrees in violin performance and ethnomusicology (specializing in Sikh devotional music and Canadian cultural policy, respectively). In addition to performing traditional Western art music, she is dedicated to engaging in art that reflects the current era: contemporary and genre-bending musics, improvisation, and interdisciplinary creation. Parmela has released three critically acclaimed Attar Project albums that combine the virtuousity of Western strings with South Asian rhythm and form. She has also worked extensively—as composer, musician and movement artist—with choreographers across a range of disciplines, in particular bharata-natyam, butoh and contact.
In 2019, after twenty-five years in Toronto, Parmela moved to the west coast—to be near family, and to experience the place where her grandfather was brought as a child labourer over a century earlier. She continues to live an eclectic musical life, while also being deeply engaged in advocating for equity and ethics in Canadian musicking. In 2021, Parmela co-founded Understory, an interdisciplinary network and creation platform for Canadian improvising artists. https://understorysound.ca Her recent creative work includes collaborations with: Sujit Vaidya (Sacred Sacrilegious dance film); Peter Morin, Ayumi Goto and the Esker Foundation (sound installations); and Marion Newman/Calgary Opera (Namwayut opera).
Video documentation: Eva Brownstein
Audio documentation: Jaewoo Lee
Video and audio editing: Roxanne Nesbitt
