An Invitation to Join The Starling Cloud Choir with Lori Weidenhammer

This is a family-friendly workshop and performance where you will use your voice to make sound poetry in a group in a piece inspired by rain and birdsong. We'll be working with bird behavior and the mnemonics and phonetics of local bird song. We'll also be exploring the sound of the rain using our voices and I will ask you to improvise around some of my own poetry. This is your opportunity to be in a performance art choir! Bring your family and friends!

You are invited to attend one or both of two workshops the weekend before the performance: Saturday March 9 and Sunday, March 10 from 2 to 3:30 pm both days. Please dress for comfort and bring your own water bottle. No need to pre-register, just come to the front entrance to sign in for the workshops.

The improvisational performance of the Starling Cloud Choir is on Saturday March 16 at 3 pm. Performers please arrive at 2:30 pm for a warm up and orientation. You will also be invited to explore the art installations by the other Second Site artists. The performance dress code is eccentric! Channel the bird-lover in you and display your best (rainy day) plumage.

Where: The Dr. Sun Yat Sen Classical Chinese Garden, 578 Carrall Street

Cost to participate: Free!

For more information follow along the creative process on Lori Weidenhammer's blog: www.beespeakersaijiki.blogspot.com

If you can't join us for the workshops, please come to the opening and check out the art installations by Second Site artist Robin Ripley, Diana Burgoyne and Matt Smith. The choir will be performing at 3 pm and the audience will be invited to participate!

Biography:  Lori Weidenhammer is a Vancouver performance-based interdisciplinary artist originally from Saskatchewan. For the past six years she has been appearing as the persona Madame Beespeaker on a regular basis, i.e. at the Regina Folkfest, Visualeyez performance art festival, VanDusen Botanical Gardens, and UBC Farm. Her collaborative media works with Peter Courtemanche have been shown in Canada and abroad, including Divining for Lost Sound (Bregenz, Austria), Brain Dress (Grunt Gallery, Vancouver) The Haunted Crinoline (The Dunlop Gallery, Regina), and The Laughing Dress (Video Pool, Winnipeg). She is one of the members of the Second Site artist collective. As a food security volunteer and activist Weidenhammer works with students of all ages on identifying native plants, eating locally, gardening for pollinators, and guerrilla gardening. She is passionate about art that that transforms the relationship between the artist and the viewer and creates community bonds.