Tar sands songbook
2018
Presented by the Tishman Environment and Design Center at The New School
in conjunction with the university-wide curriculum disruption: Disrupt Climate Injustice
John L. Tishman Auditorium
New York, NY
TEAM
Creator, Writer, Performer: Tanya Kalmanovitch
Writer, Director, Collaborator: Cecilia Rubino
Media Design by: Stephen Byram, Morgan Raspanti, Ari Grossman, Adithya Pratama, Louisa Strothman
FUNDING AND OTHER SUPPORT PROVIDED BY
Tishman Center, The New School
Graduate Institute of Design, Ethnography and Social Thought, The New School
New England Conservatory's Faculty Professional Development Fund
ABOUT
An illuminating work of documentary theater, the Tar Sands Songbook asks us to reconsider our unseen relationships with oil. Creator Tanya Kalmanovitch knows these relationships all too well. Born in Fort McMurray, Canada, near the site of the Athabasca Oil Sands, 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.” Fort McMurray has since become a flashpoint of international clashes over energy, the environment, and the economy. Written in collaboration with director Cecilia Rubino, Kalmanovitch's polyphonic piece weaves together a chorus of actors' voices with an original, improvised score. The words of indigenous activists, engineers, heavy equipment operators, elders, oil patch workers, scientists, and those of her own family fuel discussions of our past and the powerful forces that shape our future.
