Monday, November 12, 2018

QUEENS MUSEUM


Hello!

SleepWalks is Lee Pembleton and Andrea Williams. We create improvised soundscapes of our field-recordings to create surreal-scapes for sleeping dreamers. Often when dreamers sleep in the same location for a SleepWalks, they share collaborative dreams. Please join our virtual residency at the Queens Museum as part of the Saunter, Trek, Escort, Parade (S.T.E.P.) exhibit.


You can download our soundscape SleepWalks: The Body of Dreams (about 45 minutes long) for listening here from Google Drive:

SleepWalks: The Body of Dreams

When you wake up, please write down your dreams or lucid imagery in your online Dream Journal (link below). Also you can upload any drawings of dreams that you might like to share in there as well:

SleepWalks Dream Journal

We will be posting the dream journal entries on this site www.sleepwalks.org until December 15th.

Thank you for sharing!

<3
Andrea and Lee
SleepWalks


SleepWalks overnight 9/29/2018 at Flux Factory, Long Island City, NYC


SLEEPWALKS

On September 29th, 2018, Lee Pembleton and Andrea Williams performed a SleepWalks overnight at Flux Factory, an art gallery in Long Island City, NYC for the closing night of the S.T.E.P. exhibit. The theme we chose for the night for the 8-hours of our improvised field-recordings was "cities and a rising flood line for NYC. A sense of despair, yet hope and renewal." In the morning, we shared breakfast and talked about our dreams and what dreams are for. Super lovely conversation! Thank you to the curators and to the SleepWalks participants! <3

Monday, July 16, 2018

SleepWalks: A CatNap for Lucid Dreaming and Awakening Dance at BlessFest! 7/20/18



SleepWalks: A CatNap for Lucid Dreaming
and Awakening Dance at BlessFest!
Friday July 20th, 11pm-2am

We spend about one-third of our lives sleeping and dreaming, yet scientists still don't know exactly why. In an average lifespan of 77 years that is 25 years of our lives. Many cultures find wisdom in dreams.

Some theorists propose that before the industrial age, in the United States we would fall asleep at night for just a few hours, and then wake up and share dreams together, even leaving the house to share with our neighbors, before having "second sleep", the more restful sleep of the night.

Bring your sleeping bags, pillows and comfy blankets to Stable Gate Farm and Winery for a First sleep–a 'catnap'– with sound artist Andrea Williams.

SleepWalks: A CatNap is a night of relaxation, lucid dreaming, and dancing that aims to awaken your creativity and dreams.

From 11pm to about 11:45 (First Sleep):
You will be offered essential oils and mugwort tea as you set up your bedding and comfy things in the Lodge. Sound artist, Andrea Williams will perform an improvised soundscape for lucid dreaminess and restfulness followed by a gong bath. 

11:45pm-midnight: You will be gently awakened, and you can choose to journal, chat about the experience with others, return to slumberland at home or in your tent, OR...

Midnight to 2am:
Join us for AWAKENING DANCE, a vibrant, body moving DJ set by Matthias before your more restful return to slumberland in "Second Sleep". 

www.sleepwalks.org
www.listeninglistening.org
www.blessfest.org/

Tuesday, May 29, 2018

SleepWalks: A CatNap // Two-part series for Awakening Creativity and Dreams, June 7th and June 21st, 2018


SleepWalks: A CatNap
A Two-Part Series on Tapping into
Lucid Dreaming For Creativity
with Andrea Williams

(event starts promptly at 8pm)
$25 for series or $15 for individual workshop in advance
$30 and $20 respectively at the door

**You are invited to stay later on June 7th to celebrate Andrea's Birthday! Dance party after the CatNap with DJ spinning records until midnight!**

TICKETS: 10-linda-way.ticketleap.com/sleepwalks/


We spend about one-third of our lives sleeping and dreaming, yet scientists still don't know exactly why. In an average lifespan of 77 years that is 25 years of our lives. Many cultures find wisdom in dreams.

Some theorists propose that before the industrial age, in the United States we would fall asleep at night for just a few hours, and then wake up and share dreams together before the second sleep of the night.

Bring your sleeping bags, pillows and comfy blankets to Stable Gate Farm and Winery for a first sleep–a 'catnap'– with sound artist Andrea Williams.

SleepWalks: A CatNap is an evening of relaxation and lucid dreaming that aims to awaken your creativity and dreams.

We will share mugwort tea, essential oils, snacks, and a brief gong bath to enter a state of restfulness. Then there will be a SleepWalks 'CatNap', a live 45-minute electronic music soundscape with a different theme for each workshop to facilitate lucid dreaming on a particular topic to share about with the group afterwards.

Williams will create sounds from field recordings, live samples of the room resonance, and various electronically processed acoustic instruments, to create an extended musical composition for the audience who are encouraged to sleep in the performance space.

On June 7th the theme is Travelogue of Memory, a connection to places and the self.
On June 21st, the theme is Water, a sense of connectedness to our local waterways.

CatNaps encourage lucid dreaming in a relaxed state, as well as full dreaming for those who can fall asleep more easily. CatNaps are an abbreviated version of the project SleepWalks, where participants sleep overnight in a space with an improvised 8-hour electronic music performance by Andrea Williams and Lee Pembleton, and often collaborative dreams take place.

The goal of the long-term project, SleepWalks, is to compose engaging and collaborative soundwalks for dreamers; to compose soundwalk experiences in participants' dreams. CatNaps allow the project to be performed more broadly, as currently the duo of Pembleton and Williams live in separate cities. During both SleepWalks and CatNaps, the dreamscapes are created using field recordings collected from around the world.

Sleepwalks has been performed at numerous venues including Issue Project Room, NYC; Diapason Gallery, NYC; and Mills College, Oakland, CA as part of The Deep Listening Institute's Dream Festival. SleepWalks members include: musicians, Andrea Williams and Lee Pembleton, and scientist, Todd Anderson. Most recently, SleepWalks received an Arts Center of the Capital Region/NYSCA grant to perform SleepWalks: The Body of Dreams (with Ellen Sinopoli Dance Company): an art exhibit and multimedia dance performance created from the collaborative dreams of SleepWalks participants.

Sound artist, Andrea Williams, utilizes site-specific elements and perceptual cues to reveal the unseen connections between people and their environment. Her compositions make use of field recordings, instruments, computer technologies and the sound of the performance space itself. She has led soundwalks based on concepts of acoustic ecology and Deep Listening in NYC, San Francisco, and also in people's dreams in the collaborative project called SleepWalks. She has shown and performed both solo and with various musicians and artists at galleries and alternative spaces internationally, such as the Whitney Museum, Eyebeam, Roulette, The Kitchen, Children’s Creativity Museum, NPR, and the Mamori sound artist residency in the Amazon rainforest. Andrea has created soundscapes and video art for Hope Mohr Dance at Stanford University, Alyce Finwall Dance Theater at the Joyce Theater in NYC, and Ellen Sinopoli Dance Company at the Chapel + Cultural Center in Troy, NY. She is a board member of the American Society for Acoustic Ecology, a yoga teacher, and she is studying our connection to water via soundwalks as a Ph.D. candidate in Electronic Arts at RPI in Troy, NY.

http://www.listeninglistening.com/

/// FAQ ///

What do I need to bring?

Please bring comfy bedding that you can get cozy on for about 45 minutes.

I might arrive late. Is this ok?

The event begins at 8pm sharp with mugwort tea and other preparations offered for relaxation. Due to the fact that some participants may fall asleep during the performance, and we do not want to disturb them for the 45 minutes, we will be closing the doors at 8:30pm.

Where do I park?

In the Parking Lot on the left just before the Lodge, the event will be held in the lodge.

Wednesday, May 23, 2018

SleepWalks: The Body of Dreams at Kaatsbaan International Dance Center, June 2nd, 2018, 7:30pm




On Saturday June 2, 2018, the Ellen Sinopoli Dance Company will perform
SLEEPWALKS: THE BODY OF DREAMS and AFT.er, two unique multi-media dance pieces. Sleepwalks: The Body of Dreams is a collaborative project based on collective dreams that features
sound/video artist Andrea Williams, neuroscientist and creative coder Todd Anderson
and composer/musician Lee Pembleton. AFT.er, the second multi-media piece, features
digital artist david allen, guitarist/composer Maria Zemantauski and musician Brian
Melick.

Location: Kaatsbaan International Dance Center, Tivoli, NY
When: Saturday June 2, 2018 at 7:30pm
Tickets: 845-757-5106
https://kaatsbaan.yapsody.com/event/index/191306/ellen-sinopoli-dance-company

SLEEPWALKS: THE BODY OF DREAMS is a 45-minute multimedia dance performance based
on collective dreams. Derived from dream journals and biosensor data from two overnight
SleepWalks soundscape performances that took place in 2016, soundscape improvisations
for sleeping dreamers were performed by musicians Pembleton and Williams. The theme of
WATER encouraged water-themed dreams as well as collective dreams. These overnight
SleepWalks components explored the effect of sound on dreaming, especially on collective
dreaming. Outcomes included individual dreams that incorporated the entire group, single
participants, or one of the musicians.

For the Kaatsbaan performance, Ellen Sinopoli Dance Company dancers have transformed
themselves into the dreamer bodies as they are immersed in Williams’ video projection
environments. Reality blurs with the dreamworld as the dancers move back and forth
between the reality of sleep and the revelation of our dreams.

ABOUT THE COLLABORATING SLEEPWALKS ARTISTS:

TODD ANDERSON
As a neuroscientist and creative coder, Todd Anderson builds systems that enable faster
learning based on recent research into how memories are formed. Sleep is an important
part of memory formation, as sleep is when new short-term memories are consolidated
into long-term memories. In fact, by curating the sonic environment during both
daytime studying and nighttime consolidation, a learner can boost their memory of their
studies. This phenomenon was discovered in academic sleep labs around the world, and
his company, Sheepdog Sciences, worked on a version for home use that was utilized to
track stages of sleep and brainwaves of participants in the SleepWalks overnight
performances.

LEE PEMBLETON
Lee has been composing and performing music and art for over twenty years. The bulk
of that time has been spent investigating sound environments and creating
performative installations. He has been a member of several contemporary music/
performance ensembles &amp; jazz bands along with the occasional rock, psychedelic &amp; folk
groups. He has performed his works at a variety of venues, ranging from the
Smithsonian&#39;s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden to Chicago&#39;s infamous punk
club, the Czar Bar. His installations have been featured in museums, galleries and clubs
in America and Europe. http://vime.org/ http://earthboundmoon.com

ANDREA WILLIAMS
Sound artist, Andrea Williams, utilizes site-specific elements and perceptual cues to
reveal the unseen connections between people and their environment. Her
compositions make use of field recordings, instruments, computer technologies and the
sound of the performance space itself. She has led soundwalks based on concepts of
acoustic ecology and Deep Listening in NYC, San Francisco, and also in people&#39;s dreams
in the collaborative project called SleepWalks. She has shown and performed both solo
and with various musicians and artists at galleries and alternative spaces internationally,
such as the Whitney Museum, Eyebeam, Roulette, The Kitchen, Children’s Creativity
Museum, NPR, and the Mamori sound artist residency in the Amazon rainforest. Andrea
has created soundscapes for Hope Mohr Dance at Stanford University and video
environments for Alyce Finwall Dance Theater at the Joyce Theater in NYC. She is a
board member of the American Society for Acoustic Ecology, a yoga teacher, and she is
studying our connection to water via soundwalks as a Ph.D. candidate in Electronic
Arts at RPI in Troy, NY. http://www.listeninglistening.com

ABOUT THE ELLEN SINOPOLI DANCE COMPANY (ESDC) is a 27year old not-for-
profit arts organization located in NYS’s Capital Region. Celebrating its 26th season as
resident company of The Egg, ESDC’s commitment to CREATE, COLLABORATE,
EDUCATE and PARTNER remains in the forefront as it shares its work with diverse
audiences through concerts, showcases, residencies, workshops, educational and
community outreach. Artistic Director Ellen Sinopoli and her dancers has created over
80 dances since the company’s inception in 1991. ESDC’s collaborations and artistic
projects serve as a conduit to bring together talented artists (both regional and
national) from varied genres that include visual artists, sculptors, architects, composers
and musicians, poets and storytellers, videographers, photographers and physicists.

ESDC DANCERS
LOUISA BARTA received her early dance training at the Cache Valley Civic Ballet School
and Company of Logan, UT, and the Ballet West Academy in Salt Lake City. A graduate
of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts (BFA in Dance, ’13), she has worked with notable
teachers and choreographers Kyle Abraham, David Dorfman, Pamela Pietro, James
Sutton, and Sean Curran. Barta has had the additional opportunities to study across the
country and abroad with the Walnut Hill Conservatory, North Carolina School of the
Arts, LINES Contemporary Ballet, Royal Winnipeg Ballet School, Dance Italia, and most
recently San Francisco Conservatory of Dance. Professionally, she has performed with
the VashtiDance African Dance Company and CeDan Dance, based in NYC, and has
participated in local dance festivals as both dancer and choreographer (“Choreography
On the Edge”, 2016, Woodstock, NY, Nacre’s “So You Think You Can Choreograph?”
Festival, 2016, Saratoga Springs, NY, and in conjunction with Troy Night Out). Barta
teaches and choreographs for several schools in the Capital Region and is in her fourth
season with ESDC.

MAGGIE CIAMBRONE is a native of Easton, PA. She received her early dance training at
Stage Door Studio of Wilson, PA and then went on to the Lehigh Valley Charter High
School for the Performing Arts under the direction of Kim Maniscalco. In May 2014,
Ciambrone graduated summa cum laude from the University at Buffalo with a BFA in
Dance. While in Buffalo, she performed with Zodiaque Dance Company for three years
and did various other projects under the direction of Melanie Aceto. She attended the
Alvin Ailey School and the LehrerDance intensive, took workshops at Dance New
Amsterdam, and in 2013 received a full scholarship to attend the American Dance
Festival in Durham, NC. Ciambrone is in her fourth season with ESDC and is an Arts in
Education Coordinator for the company.

MADELINE MORSER is originally from Vashon Island, WA where she received her early
dance training at Vashon Allied Arts, under the direction of Christine Juarez. In addition
to her hometown training, Morser studied at San Francisco Conservatory of Dance,
Dance Fremont, Idyllwild Arts Academy, and Cornish College of the Arts. She graduated
magna cum laude from Skidmore College with a BS in Dance and a minor in Exercise
Science. While at Skidmore, Morser received the Departmental Award for Excellence in
Performance and Choreography, and co-authored a pilot study, presented at the
International Association of Dance Medicine and Science 2015. Throughout her college
career, she enjoyed studying with and performing works by Robert Battle, Earl Mosely,
Lar Lubovitch, and Doug Varone. Morser is in her second season with ESDC.

ANDRÉ ROBLES is a graduate of the Joffrey Ballet School NYC. While a student at JBS
he had the opportunity to perform with the Joffrey Ballet in works by noted
choreographers Gerald Arpino, Peter Pucci, and Margo Sappington. Prior to his time at
JBS, Robles studied at the Ailey School where he danced in works by Dwight Rhoden,
Nacho Duato, Troy Powell, Pedro Ruiz, and Judith Jamison. Robles studied at Teatro
Colon in Buenos Aires, Argentina where he danced in works by George Balanchine and
Marius Petipa. He has presented his own choreography at The Arts Center of the Capital
Region as part of Troy Night Out. He hails from Brooklyn, NY and joined the company in
2009.

SARA SENECAL graduated magna cum laude and phi beta kappa from the University at
Buffalo with a BA in Dance and a minor in Education. During her time there she was a
dancer in Zodiaque Studio Dance Ensemble and a dancer and choreographer for
Emerging Choreographers&#39; Showcase. Senecal has studied with various artists such as
Jump Rhythm Jazz Project, Urban Bush Women, Jon Lehrer of LehrerDance and
collaborated with visual artist Saya Woolfalk as a dancer and co-choreographer for her
performance art exhibit, &quot;No Place: A Ritual of the Empathics&quot;, shown in Buffalo, NY
and NYC. She has presented her own choreography at The Poets Den in Harlem, Byrdcliffe Theatre in Woodstock, The Art Center of the Capital Region in Troy, and was a finalist in Nacre&#39;s &quot;So You Think You Can Choreograph&quot; Showcase in Saratoga
Springs. Senecal is originally from Schenectady, NY where she studied at Merritt Dance
Center under Mara and Marlene Merritt. Sara has been with the company since 2010
and is an Arts in Education Coordinator for the company.

LAURA TEETER hails from Minneapolis, where she began her early training. She
graduated magna cum laude from The Boston Conservatory with a BFA in Dance
Performance, where she performed in works by José Limón and Seán Curran. While in
Boston she co-produced a concert of her choreography and performed as a guest artist
with Zoé Dance. Since joining the company in 2004, Teeter has choreographed for
ESDC, and collaborated with fellow ESDC dancers on Obsequi, a multi-media art event
held in Albany’s historic St. Joseph’s Church, and as part of Trashion at Revolution Hall
in Troy. She has presented work at Choreography on the Edge in Woodstock, NY, at the
Chapel and Cultural Center at RPI, and at the Arts Center in Troy as part of Troy Night
Out. Teeter serves as the Assistant to the Artistic Director of ESDC and is also on the
faculty of Russell Sage College and Siena College.