Refractions of What We Thought Were Birds

Performed at CRASHBOX, Austin, TX

2 June 2023

Refractions of What We Thought Were Birds is a collaborative multimedia performance by Gabriel Araújo and Dylan McLaughlin synthesizing the patterns, textures, and cosmologies of lost sounds, resurfaced memories and imagined birds. It’s a series of meditations on centering stories of displacement, and the threatened loss of ancestral practices. Working alongside the Arte e Educação do Campo program at Universidade Federal do Norte do Tocantins with prof. Dr. Aia Oro Iara, the piece was composed in response to several months of facilitated workshops with Apinajé communities in Brazil, addressing a nearly lost practice of instrument building.

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