Threads Of Peace

In 2007, Ms. White’s Threads of Peace became a musical score for a performance in Hudson, NY as part of the Deep Listening Institute’s Convergence, dubbed ‘a gesture of sonic peace’. The long, scrolling, fabric piece was woven out of stories, dreams and images of peace that were contributed by a wide variety of individuals from around the world. The artist worked with them creatively, then sewed them together into a 50 ft. long prayer of peace.  The scroll was breathed to life by the 17 musicians who used it as a score for improvisation.  The images were also projected on the big screen for the audience to see, so that all present in the space could focus on the essence of Threads of Peace , thus offering it as a possibility to the world.

Threads of Peace  ( as featured in greenermags online magazine out of NYC)

The Deep Listening Convergence: Report was presented by Pauline Oliveros at the Guelph Jazz Festival Colloquium, at the University of Guelph, ON, Canada on September 5, 2007. Here she speaks about her experiences with the Skype rehearsal

to quote Anne Bourne’s experience as a performer in Threads of Peace  in the report.(Here she speaks about her experiences with the Skype rehearsal of this piece.)

“I feel the technique of global listening became essential when, for example, we rehearsed Julia White’s  ‘Threads of Peace’ with 9 women. It expanded the consciousness of my imagination to locate each woman to sing with her.  I looked at images of Julia’ textile piece on-line and saw her interpretation of my grandfather’s WW2 British Army Issue silk scarf that said in 17 Asian languages ‘Hello, I am not your enemy’ and ‘Please may I have a bowl of rice’.  I began to hear explosive moments of Skype distortion that evoked in me the imagined sounds of war. This interspersed with the women’s singing voices and shakuhachi flutes calling to each other.  I also found the latency effect an effective processing delay sound.  My performance listening techniques are not seemingly changed yet, but their usefulness is confirmed in a real way with this technology, much the way a sound that comes from outside a room’s sound sources confirms the intersection of room tones and the voices of other listening souls.”    (Anne Bourne)