Blackwood talk in celebration of Folklore's 40th

by Janet Harron

David Blackwood, one of Canada's most respected visual storytellers -- and an honorary degree recipient from Memorial -- will give an illustrated public lecture on Thursday, Nov. 20, at 7 p.m., in the Great Hall of Queen's College at Memorial. During the talk, Dr. Blackwood will discuss how growing up in outport Newfoundland has shaped his work and his life. His talk is in celebration of the 40th anniversary of the founding of the Department of Folklore at Memorial.

"David Blackwood is a dominant and charismatic force, not only within Canada but also in the international art scene," said Dr. Paul Smith, a professor in the Folklore department. "His work translates the sagas of Newfoundland's traditional culture and commemorates a way of life quite foreign to the majority of Canadians, let along the rest of the world. I speak for all my colleagues in folklore when I say we are thrilled that he is giving this talk in honour of the 40th anniversary of the founding of our department."

Dr. Blackwood's work has been exhibited nationally and internationally with over 90 solo shows and scores of group exhibitions. He has been the subject of two major retrospective exhibitions and the National Film Board's Academy-Award nominated documentary film Blackwood.

His work may in found in virtually every major public gallery and corporate art collection in Canada, as well as in major private and public collections around the world, including the collection of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II (at Windsor Castle) and the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy.

Seating for the Nov. 20th event is limited. To reserve a seat, please contact the Department of Folklore by calling 737-8402 or e-mailing folklore@mun.ca. Parking is available in Lot 19 in the front of Queen's College and on meters in adjacent parking areas.

Wooden Boat Building, continued

The Wooden Boat Building Conference in Winterton at the start of the month was a great success, but the committee has not been resting on their laurels. They have identified three key areas where work needs to continue:

1. Documenting the boatbuilding life of Mr. Henry Vokey.
2. Action as an Advocacy Group for the preservation of our forest resource and rights of bona fide boat builders to harvest boatbuilding timber.
3. Preserving the secrets locked up in the aging boats strewn across the province by creating an army of helpers through a Field Documentation Course specifically addressing the challenges of traditional wooden boats.

The third goal dovetails nicely with the training and standards goals of the ICH strategy, so keep tuned for future developments on that front.

You can see the Wooden Boat News, Issue 3 in pdf here.

Music in the Wrong Place: Disco Music in Quebec

Memorial University welcomes noted author and editor Dr. Will Straw for the second in this year’s Music, Media and Culture Lecture Series. He’ll deliver a special lecture on Thursday, Nov. 20, entitled Music in the Wrong Place: Disco Music in Quebec.

Through an analysis of artists and recordings, Dr. Straw will show how disco music found its place within a culture marked by an intense debate over language and its political meaning.

“In the late 1970s, the music industry trade magazine Billboard called Montreal one of the three international capitals of disco music,” said Dr. Straw, the author of more than 60 articles on film music, media and cultural studies and the co-editor of The Cambridge Companion to Popular Music.

“Dance music flourished in Quebec during the late 1970s. I will focus on the career of Pierre Perpall, a disco recording artist sometimes called the ‘first Afro-Quebecois star’.”

The lecture begins at 7:30 p.m., in the Music, Media and Place Gallery in the Arts and Culture Centre, which is located in the northeast corner of the building.

The lecture is sponsored by the Memorial University’s Research Centre for the Study of Music, Media and Place (MMaP). The series showcases diverse research areas, approaches, and presentation styles in the field of music. The event is open to the public and is free of charge.

Parking is available in the Arts and Culture Parking Lot.

Dr. Straw is a professor in the Department of Art History and Communications Studies at McGill University. He is the author of the forthcoming book Popular Music: Scenes and Sensibilities, as well as more than 60 articles on film music,media, and cultural studies.

He is the co-editor of The Cambridge Companion to Popular Music and serves on the editorial boards of numerous journals, including Screen and Theory and Critique.

His current research focuses on New York tabloid culture of the 1930s. Media agencies are invited to send representatives to this event.

The Memory Booth

Dale Jarvis and Chris Brookes murmur about Water Street

On November 13th, folklorist/storyteller Dale Jarvis and radio documentary producer Chris Brookes are turning the Crow’s Nest Officers Club into a memory booth for this November’s Storytelling Circle.

Just like a photo booth records photos, a memory booth will record memories! In this instance, we’ll collect your personal memories of Water Street. Pleasant, poignant, historical, hysterical, smelly, or sensual, we want them all. Do you have a memory of a taste, a vision, a shared kiss, a late night conversation, a holiday gift, a loss, a love, something that happened on Water Street? Come share!

We’ll be setting up a few mics, and recording whatever memories you want to share as part of bringing the fantastic [murmur] project to St. John’s.

What is [murmur]? Just listen…

[murmur] is a documentary oral history project that records stories and memories told about specific geographic locations. We’ll collect and make accessible people's personal histories and anecdotes about the places in their neighborhoods that are important to them. In each of these locations we’ll install a [murmur] sign with a telephone number on it that anyone can call with a mobile phone to listen to that story while standing in that exact spot, and engaging in the physical experience of being right where the story takes place. Some stories suggest that the listener walk around, following a certain path through a place, while others allow a person to wander with both their feet and their gaze.

The stories we will record will range from personal recollections to more "historic" stories, or sometimes both -- but always are told from a personal point of view, as if the storyteller is just out for a stroll and was casually talking about their neighbourhood to a friend.

$3 at the door, listeners welcome!

Time and Place Date: Thursday, November 13, 2008
Time: 7:30pm - 9:30pm
Location: The Crow's Nest Officers Club
Street: Just beside the War Memorial, Duckworth Street
City/Town: St. John's, NL

Check out:

http://murmurtoronto.ca/ [murmur] Toronto

http://galway.murmur.ie/ [murmur] Galway

http://edinburgh.murmur.info/ [mumur] Edinburgh