Blogs > Special Features > Deep Wireless 2007
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Republic of Safety
Posted by: Barry Rueger on May 26, 2007 09:15 AM | Comments (0)
 There is a tradition among Transom bloggers that they report not just on the actual event, but on what they do after the show.
Friday night at Radio Without Boundaries led us from the Student Centre at Ryerson University, to The Beer Bistro on King Street for moules et frites, and then finally to a small Queen West bar for the closing set by the Republic of Safety. It was all in all remarkable and fun, and reminded me of the conformity of our day to day lives.
The evening's show at RWB actually echoed the themes of safety and danger.
"Remember the feeling of your Mom pushing you on the swings when you were four years old?"
We are sitting in a darkened room, really the only way to hear radio, the same way that you heard it as a child, with the radio hidden under your covers, turned down low.
A single spotlight lit a small transistor radio at centre stage.
A voice, from the radio, yet disembodied as it travels throughout the room, welcomes us, and draws us into that place where the sound overtakes the senses and wraps you in its embrace.
The message from tonight's guide, Richard Lee, was simple: take risks, push the boundaries, listen hard.
The evening opened with a new work by CBC radio's Steve Wadhams.
 Trains Crossing uses one of the most archetypical of sounds to tell the story of an elderly woman who broods on "what might have been if, as a child, she had told the truth that Saturday night when a man came to the door and asked her a simple question."
The sounds of trains, the sounds of a woman's voice, all spatialized by NAISA Artistic director Darren Copeland gave the audience a reminder of the immersive experience that radio can be at its best. And yes the sense of "what might have been" was a powerful one.
Following Steve's work was Through a Door by Sarah Boothroyd. Through a Door presents Boothroyd's exploration of Ottawa's Nicholas Street jail, one of Canada's oldest public buildings, and the site of Canada's last public execution.
 Boothroyd's work again draws on sounds that are familiar, the sounds of prison doors and prison walls, but uses those sounds as the raw materials for an atmospheric and evocative exploration of that environment.
Within that fantastic but familiar soundscape voices emerge that tell the story of Thomas D'Arcy McGee, a Canadian journalist, poet, and politician who was assassinated in 1868.
The second half of the evening drew on another archetypical radio experience, with a live radio drama performance titled It Is To Laugh: Transistorized Feedback.
 Portland Maine's Dan Bernard was joined by Toronto performers Mark Ellis, Stacey Depass, and Stephen Latigan. A lively performance, and one which explored and a parodied both classic radio drama conventions, and contemporary media practices, all performed to a multi-layered sonic composed by Michael Townsend, and spatialized by Darren Copeland.
Thinking back to last night, the evening offered audience members a starting point, a group of settings and sounds that were familiar, that allowed a toehold.
And that is the power of archetypes, in radio, or literature, or art. It is the known and the comfortable, and is the place where one begins an exploration of a theme.
But it is now Saturday morning, and Robin Ravlich is speaking, so it is time to leave safety behind.
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