With collaborators Julia Friend and Rebecca McGowan, I spent the summer and fall recording this 7-track EP, capturing the music from our live dance-theater show Sound Shadows (banjo + percussive dance + ballads + shadowpuppetry), working in our kitchens and closets (with the help of sound engineer Rafi Singer).

And so: Sound Shadows the record is coming in March to a set of earbuds / stereo system near you!

Knitting together dance and music, visual imagery and song, light and shadow, Sound Shadows draws details into relief and shows the unseen. A collaborative creation of Veronica Barron (theater artist, puppeteer, storyteller, singer), Julia Friend (banjo player, singer, visual artist), and Rebecca McGowan (Irish and percussive dancer), Sound Shadows debuted in January 2019 in a Catalysts Residency at the Dance Complex in Cambridge, MA, with support from the Cambridge Arts Council.

Tapping feet give dimension to banjo melodies; shadow pictures bring old stories to life; songs infuse emotion into movement. These dimensions inspire us to look for the invisible presence of where we came from and how it informs where we are going.

Our record – releasing March 2021 – invites the listener into our intimate creative process. It conjures the physical space in which our music is made, combining the familiar and the novel: the squeak of dance shoes, the singer’s breath, the clatter of a teacup, approaching footsteps.

07 Feb This entry was published on February 7, 2021 at 5:28 pm. It’s filed under Audio, Listen/Watch!, Music, My Work, Puppetry, Theater and tagged folk music, Julia Friend, Rebecca McGowan, Sound Shadows, traditional music. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.