Sealed in Secret Soil is an immersive sonic meditation exploring the performers’ individual and communal relationship to the land that sustains them.
Rooted in the ethos of contemporary visionaries such as Pauline Oliveros and Julius Eastman and the improvisational tendencies of the Sun Ra Arkestra, the music offers space for contemplation and reflection via slowly evolving improvisation prompts and spoken word invitations.
Sealed in Secret Soil
The premiere performance was the final piece of a four-part walking performance tour entitled 'Canopy: a Campus Compendium.' Each stop took place at a culturally significant tree on campus, and explored the cultural and historical relationship of the tree in relation to the Ann Arbor/U of M community.
It was also performed by The Regenerate Orchestra in February 2024.
Full recording available on all streaming platforms:
A Note on Intention
This project is equally about the music as it is about sharing space with other humans around a shared intention.
It’s no secret that our relationship to the land that sustains us (i.e. soil, water, plants) is backwards. Currently I am thinking about how much of the work to heal our community has to be done in huge collaborative efforts among many groups of humans. In order to stop forests being taken down to create luxury apartments and cop cities, in order for us to create systems that allow us to consume food from a process that isn’t destroying our topsoil, in order to eradicate attitudes of conquest and create culture that views the world as alive, collaboration across many groups is essential.
Though I’m not trying to provide a single answer to large questions, I hope that gathering humans together to create joyful sound, talking to (and eating food with) folks in your community, and celebrating the natural world can act as seeds for us to co-create beautiful and just futures.
Research
This project is in many ways a culmination of my many-faced area of research - ecology, spirituality, community-building, and performance. In this section I want to include some authors and heroes of mine who have made this work possible, especially Indigenous scientist Robin Wall Kimmerer.
