~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Each Morning of the World #02
North American PhoNographic Mornings #20/20
Friendship Park ~San Diego ~California ~USA
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
«  Border Fandango »
Suzanne Thorpe
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For my contribution to North American PhoNographic Mornings I ventured to the U.S. – Mexican border on 27 May, 2017 to record. Specifically, I visited Friendship Park, located in an area where San Diego, California and Tijuana, Mexico meet. Since 1849 when the US-Mexico Boundary Commission first met at this location, the park has historically been, and continues to be, a meeting place for those living in the two countries. Today, however, the park is heavily guarded, and the border wall is a dense thatching that makes it difficult to discern details of the other side. A visit to the park typically finds the contemporary traumas of immigration issues, and consequences of Nation States, on full display. Emotional rawness is prevalent as friends, family and loved ones who find it difficult to move from country to country gather at this divided meeting place.

The day I visited, however, there was a unique event: the Fandango Frontererizo, or “party at the frontier.” Fandango Frontererizo is an annual gathering of musicians from the U.S. and Mexico at the border wall. Musicians come from far and wide to unite in the singing of Mexican folk songs. They call and respond to each other thru the wall, playing to the rhythms provided by the Zapataedo (a style of dancing performed on wooden platforms to amplify the sound), and singing amidst a sea of guitars. The musical communion is an incredibly heartwarming gesture, one that, through its performance, demonstrates that walls can’t keep people apart.

This field recording features the sounds of my arrival at the park, as I emerged out of a mile-long hike along the coast, and those of others arriving, greeting each other, and warming up. They finally unite into a long sonic exchange, of which this features a small part.



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Suzanne Thorpe
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Suzanne Thorpe is an award-winning electroacoustic flutist and composer, as well as a researcher and educator, whose work migrates between fixed, improvised, performed and installed forms. She employs an evolving array of technologies, listening for sound qualities and timbres, and moments to introduce them to each other. Drawing upon traditions of soundscape, land art, and improvisation, as well as research in new materialism, environmental ethics and systems inquiry, she composes works that reference the dynamic relationships between sound, place and its inhabitants.

Thorpe has performed and presented her work internationally at a variety of venues, from the Reading Festival in the U.K., to the New Museum in N.Y., and has performed with a host of musicians, from J Mascis to Pauline Oliveros, and more. Thorpe has released over 20 recordings, and was a founding member of critically acclaimed Mercury Rev, with whom she performed, recorded and toured from 1989 - 2001. She has been awarded a gold record for 1998's Deserter's Songs, the Frog Peak Collective Award for innovative research, and residencies and fellowships for her own work from Harvestworks Digital Media Foundation, New Music USA, and the MAP Foundation. Having earned an MFA in Electronic Music & Media from Mills College, she is also a certified Deep Listening Instructor. Currently, she is a Ph.D Candidate at UC San Diego, where she focuses on critical theory and systems inquiry as applied to sound, and serves as Co-Founder/Director of TECHNE, an organization that introduces young women and girls to technology-focused art making, musical improvisation, and listening.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To learn more about Fandango Frontererizo, visit:
www.facebook.com/FandangoFronterizo/

To learn more about Suzanne Thorpe, visit:
www.suzannethorpe.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~