November 10, 2024 • 62 mins
Lisa Kelley is a vocalist, performance artist and mother residing in Kingston, NY. Steeped in traditional theater, vocal and performance studies in her youth, Lisa’s creative process continues to revolve around investigations of identity, musical genres and styles, dream action theater, her family’s immigration memories from the Philippines, universal archetypes, Eastern philosophy and a recognition of the metaphysical and spiritual. Lisa’s performances and writing explore womanhood, grief and loss, dreams and the confluence of self in nature and the cosmos. She spent twelve years working closely with Pauline Oliveros and Ione as a staff member and artist of the Deep Listening Institute performing in numerous festivals and concerts and collaborating with fellow Deep Listening artists across the globe. Lisa is a Deep Listening certificate holder and an ordained high priestess and board member of the Ministry of Maåt. Lisa is currently the founding Executive Director of the Kingston Midtown Arts District and an arts commissioner for the City of Kingston. Lisabarnardkelley.com
In this episode Lisa Kelley tells how her experience working for almost a decade at the Deep Listening Institute influenced her vocal work and her experience leading Pauline Oliveros' "Heart Chant."
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(00:00):
Welcome to listening with China Blue.
(00:03):
This is a podcast that focuses on how listening not only informs us about what is occurring in the world around us,
but also helps us connect with others,
build stronger businesses,
strengthens our mental health,
and become more creative and compassionate individuals.
As more and more people practice attentive listening in a community,
(00:23):
it becomes a community building practice that
strengthens our mental health as we learn from our neighbors.
I will be interviewing people from all walks of life to learn how listening has informed them in their field
and help them to make intelligent decisions.
They will be artists, musicians, composers, dancers, business people, psychologists, neuroscientists, and Buddhists, to name a few.
(00:51):
About me, I'm an internationally exhibiting sound-based artist.
In my work, Discovering Unheard Sounds, I realized that the core component that drove my work was simply listening.
That realization put me on the path of speaking about and helping people learn to become better listeners.
(01:11):
I began with leading sound walks, which I continue to do in the upstate New York region,
to help people learn to listen from nature.
And now, tune your ears to this podcast to learn about the power of listening.
And do pay attention until the end for further information on how to start your own listening practice,
(01:34):
share it with others, and to support listening with China Blue.
So today we're speaking with Lisa Kelly.
Lisa is a vocalist, performance artist, and mother residing in Kingston, New York.
Steeped in traditional theater, vocal, and performance studies in her youth,
Lisa's creative process continues to revolve around investigations of identity, musical genres and styles,
(02:02):
dream action theater, her family's immigration memories from the Philippines, universal archetypes,
Eastern philosophy, and a recognition of the metaphysical and spiritual.
Lisa's performances and writing explore womanhood, grief and loss,
dreams and the confluence of the self and nature, and the cosmos.
(02:26):
She spent 12 years working closely with Paulina Loveras and Ayaan as a staff member and artist of the Deep Listening Institute,
performing in numerous festivals and concerts, and collaborating with fellow deep listening artists across the globe.
Lisa is a deep listening certificate holder and an ordained high priestess and board member of the Ministry of Mahat.
(02:52):
Lisa is currently the founding executive director in the Kingston Midtown Arts District and an arts commissioner for the City of Kingston.
Welcome Lisa.
Hi, I'm happy to be here, China.
I am so happy to have you after all these years of knowing you. I'm so excited to be able to invite you to talk to you about your work.
(03:16):
Oh my gosh, that's amazing. I'm so honored.
Well, you know, you have a unique approach because you're a creative person that has, that's, as you say, steeped in theater.
But you also have been highly influenced by Paulina Loveras and the Deep Listening Institute and, you know, I, it, as an artist I was thinking that experience must have had some, I was going to say deep, you know, I was trying to avoid the using the word deep because it's going to be used forever now.
(03:57):
Yeah, it starts to not mean anything anymore.
But it's no, but it does actually it really does. Yeah. Profound. Profound. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, and layers. Yeah.
I wanted to talk to you about how it influenced your work.
Well, firstly, I didn't know really anything about Pauline when I first came to the deep listening space in about 2003.
(04:30):
I was mostly concerned as a vocalist to expanding my field of understanding and of how to express vocally, you know, lots of different ways.
It was actually I own your first guest on this podcast that came that really brought me into the space and then, and then the community brought me secondly to the space.
(05:01):
And I was always in the, you know, in the background of deep listening space that I really didn't know who she was. And, and so when I, when I facilitate a deep listening workshop I really say that deep listening came came at me from the side not at my face like
directly in my ear. It was a very kind of unconscious choice that came that came through I learned, just by being, being present with Pauline and I own and in the work and mission of the deep listening Institute, and then realized just how prolific
(05:48):
she is, is and has been for, you know, 50 years and I was like, Oh, mind blown. Okay, that was about like five years into my job.
And she still continues to unfold her, her, her legacy continues to unfold today.
(06:11):
Yeah, absolutely.
And, you know, and I know that last year, you participated in the 24 hour drone experiments and sound and music at the Basilica Hudson. Yes, yes, that was a wonderful invitation.
I wanted to, you know, for those that don't know the heart chant you, you facilitated the heart chant which is an offering of sonic healing for all beings through vocalization and listening. And this was written by Pauline in response to terrorist attacks on
(06:47):
September 11. Yes.
The heart chance instructions invite people to basically create a community through sound.
Tell us how you did that at the drone festival.
Oh, wow.
I think the, the text score is that you could do it with any number of people. I mean, I've done it with a group of five or six people up to, you know, 150 to 200 people.
(07:24):
I think maybe for the drone fest.
It was probably closer to that number over 200 people.
And it was definitely not just me, there was a bunch of plants, I had a bunch of helpers to listening plants.
And so to basically shepherd everyone into a circle. And Sarah Van Buren, who was one of the organizers of the event is also a deep listening certificate holder was able to, you know, kind of prime, prime the program, and to get everyone who had been sleeping
(08:06):
overnight so this was the closing activity of the, of the whole event.
And she had placed the score around the Basilica.
And so people could read it at their leisure, and throughout the day and evening.
And so that seemed to really work because it, it's very gentle, it was very gentle introduction.
(08:35):
And so, and then everyone had been in the drone fest, like, you know, for 24 hours.
And they were like highly receptive, you know, they were all sleepy and highly receptive.
You just had to rouse them off of their palates and sleeping bags and cushions and things, and.
(08:57):
And really, the, the mastery really of Pauline's scores is the utter simplicity of the instructions.
They, they really is effortless really.
As long as you give the introduction about.
(09:19):
Well I don't even think you need an introduction to what deep listening is, and shit, especially at an event like that because it's just, they're so open.
When you're been in a constant drone for 24 hours, your ears are just primed and tuned up and, you know, consciously and subconsciously and unconsciously and collectively so it's a really cool event that way.
(09:47):
And so the heart chant was just such a beautiful offering for F for people who had been had been opened up willingly opened up sonically.
So it was pretty easy to do.
Pretty easy to accomplish, and it was really beautiful.
(10:11):
I have heard stories from people who have actually participated.
And they've told me that it was so amazingly powerful to be a part of that, that the experience is just not just the, not the vocalization part, but how participating with all these other people in a room vocalizing simultaneously was so powerful.
(10:40):
Yes, yes.
And the, and the, the consent of touching your neighbor.
Where you put your hand on the back of the back of the heart space of the person to your left, and you put your hand on your own heart center on the front.
So, there's a loop that happens a feedback loop, physical, that's very physical as you're sounding.
(11:10):
And that is, it's, it's very powerful.
Because, yeah, you're, you're actually touching the heart centers of every person within that loop.
Oh my.
It's incredible. It's incredible feeling. I can't get enough of it.
(11:31):
That's like really, really down to the root of how we're connected.
I think that we should have a place where it's done on a regular basis.
I agree. I agree. Yeah, we need a heart chant center for healing.
Just so everybody can feel the hearts and the love of the people around them.
(11:54):
Yeah, we did that for the tribute concert in Kingston for Pauline.
Not long after she passed at City Hall, and in the council chambers which is like the upper floor of the City Hall and it's a fairly historic building built in the 19th century, and with really high ceilings and
(12:23):
a beautiful view of the mountains and we all managed to squeeze ourselves around to form a circle.
And it was incredible.
Rainbows came through the windows. Oh no. During, during the heart chant.
(12:44):
No, it was, it was wild. It was like a signal, like, you know, from Pauline and we were on the right track here.
Yeah, yeah.
Really beautiful.
The heart chant seems to always leave a signature behind in my memory, every time I've ever done it.
(13:08):
Yeah. And how many times have you done it.
Oh, I don't know I didn't really haven't really kept count.
But I own was facilitating a lot to in the last couple years.
And Pauline would do it.
(13:32):
Fair amount. I don't know and in the last 15 years I really have no idea.
I don't remember the feeling of each one.
But it putting it that way over a span of 15 years gives it some perspective.
Yeah, yeah, it ends up being kind of multi dimensional in terms of the experience. Like, each time it's a layer added.
(13:56):
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
So, stepping away from Pauline and I owns direct influence on you.
Tell me about your, some of the creative work that you're doing now.
(14:17):
Well, I took a bit of a, I mean, from an outward creative standpoint, a bit of a hiatus while raising my son.
But I also, you know, tangential to working with Pauline and I own I was also learning a lot about Linda Mary Montana's work with the Art Life Institute.
(14:40):
And her, her philosophy is that art is life and life is art her long stamina endurance pieces are really a testament to everyday life being an art practice.
If you choose it to be. And, and so I really, I really took that as a license that I could, you know, take a break from performative in the traditional sense on a stage and from an audience to to how it could apply to my everyday life how creativity can apply to the
(15:22):
individualist acts in, you know, with no witness, no witnesses spectators.
And, and so I've been meditating on that, since my son was a toddler. And now that he's 10, I'm in the last couple of years I've been moving into get my chops back in theater and working and, as you know, with the Earth Opera with Elizabeth Clark's Earth Opera
(15:54):
at widow Jane mine and Rosendale, which is one of my favorite spots.
And, and being an executive director for an arts organization that primarily focuses on visual arts as as as the source of the material of creativity has been also how I can apply my creativity to that position.
(16:22):
And so, yeah, it's, it's, it's shifted forms from performance art and recording albums and collaborating in that way to to to this director this leadership work, and this community building work, which also needs creativity in it, you know, and.
(16:51):
Yeah, and, and a lot of listening.
Yeah.
And how, how does listening get folded into that creative work.
Well, it has everything to do with the creative work.
(17:22):
You know, from, from our youth workforce training teenagers to to legacy holding of, you know, one of our most important community art leaders, Benjamin Wakefall here in Kingston, as a visionary printmaker and you know really listening to those legacies
(17:47):
Pauline being at the deep listening space.
You know holding those legacies.
They reverberate my ears. I think that I love the concept that Pauline has brought forward about that your ears are always open. They're always receiving information.
And if you're cognizant enough to be receptive to what that information could be in all its different forms.
(18:17):
It.
It definitely informs me, you know, it informs how I approach everything, everything I learn everything that I hear from others.
You know all of the things that I read all the conflicts that come from doing community work.
(18:40):
You know the intergenerational conflicts that can arise. There's just so much differences in language between generations.
I'm not saying the same words but they're completely different. You know, the way that you say them. And so yeah, really being very sensitive to that in my work, particular. Yeah.
(19:07):
Nice.
It's practice right China.
Practice.
Perfect process and a practice. That's how I always frame it as a practice because it's something that you're doing all that you should be doing all the time.
Yeah.
(19:29):
And you could get revelations they come and go.
I tend to forget a lot and I'm always trying to remember, or not trying but I am remembering to remember.
And I forget again, and, and then I have this grand revelation and, and then go on to the next thing and then, you know, it's a process it's a journey it's a beautiful, it's a beautiful way to approach life.
(19:55):
Yeah.
Well, I also wanted to ask you a question about your family's immigration memories from the Philippines I noticed that in your bio.
Uh huh. Yes.
Can you tell me a little bit about that.
(20:19):
Yeah, actually that is something in the background of my life. Gathering the stories, I think that I think every they say every, every other or every two or three generations there's a record keeper, and in each family.
And I've been driven to, since I was a kid. Oh wow. To gather information about my, my family's story.
(20:51):
So my, my mother's side of the family immigrated to the United States from the Philippines in the post World War Two, 1942, believe, and my mother was about seven.
(21:12):
Six or seven.
And my grandfather was in the US Army.
And he was able to bring the whole family to become naturalized in the United States.
And so, they were.
(21:33):
They were based in Savannah, Georgia. A lot of a lot of Filipinos ended up being stationed in San Francisco in the Bay Area, or other parts of California.
And for some reason, and I don't really know exactly why yet.
They were, he was stationed in Savannah, Georgia.
(21:54):
And so, being a brown person in Savannah, Georgia in the 50s. They were the brownest people in their school.
Along with a couple of black students.
(22:18):
And so, I was a survivor and I learned why I had was having trouble connecting to other Filipinos when I got older, because I, the only heritage that were of our culture that was maintained was the food, really, and our, our Catholic upbringings.
(22:40):
And, I mean, that was Spanish colonialism. So anyway, it's very layered. Anyway, so I've been trying to get the stories together, you know, along with, I've been getting my DNA and of course, the Filipino side of like, those DNA tests are, are pretty loose, and not that the recordings are not very clear.
(23:02):
So I've been, I've been getting oral histories from my aunts and uncles to piece together the story, the story of my mother's immigration.
My father, on the other hand is, you know, 10 or 12 generations.
(23:25):
Northeastern New Englanders.
And so, there's a bit of an immigration, a migration on my grandmother's side, where she doesn't know a lot of her heritage, and that's kind of a, that's a bit of a mystery to my father's side.
(23:46):
And so she was born in Kansas, and then moved to California. So anyway, we're a bit of a migratory family as most are.
So, yeah, it's a very American story in some ways. Yeah, yeah.
Oh, and during COVID there was a lot of reckoning around black and brown identities in America. And I read this really fascinating book, can't remember the author, it's called Brown Skin White Mind.
(24:20):
And, and it was really about the Asian experience of, of my generation, and having been whitewashed, our identities being whitewashed and what does that, what does it really bear because, you know, I think that mostly I perceived white.
(24:44):
But then there's always that question of, what do you got in there, Lisa? What's in there?
That's something going on. Like, you know, that question.
Well, in looking at you, you look very Caucasian.
And so that's one of the reasons why I brought it up because I thought, gee, this is a shock for me to see this as a part of your family history. And for me it's particularly interesting because I'm also a hapa, as the Hawaiians say, which is me, it means half Asian and half Caucasian.
(25:23):
Yes. And I'm half Chinese, but nobody would guess it because
I look more, well, I look, I don't look Chinese. So if you don't look Chinese and obviously you must be Caucasian. That's the assumption.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. A lot of people would miss, would always ask me if I was Native American.
(25:46):
Oh.
I've had Native American in me, in my blood. And I don't know if I actually do. I'm not even sure about that. But it's like that otherness, you know, there's always this little bit of otherness that stood me apart.
It stood my brother apart from growing up in a small town in North Carolina, where everybody's kind of a cousin with each other, which is not an exaggeration.
(26:15):
So I know that's kind of a trope, but it, you know, everyone is like fourth and fifth cousins.
Yeah.
So, I think I always sort of, it was a part of my identity, not of being another even though, and I don't really look at.
(26:36):
Well, I know, and I often think about that familiar environment where in my family I was raised with lots of sounds of different languages.
Oh, okay. So, I don't know if, did you have that experience? Did you hear Filipino?
Tagalog.
(26:57):
Excuse me, that was wrong. Tagalog speaking in your family as well as English.
Yes, my grandparents spoke Tagalog.
And my, my aunts, my mother and my aunts and uncles.
They understood it but they didn't speak it.
And I found, I always found that fascinating that they could understand it, but not really speak it.
(27:25):
I realize now that they were encouraged not to speak it. They were encouraged to speak English as to assimilate to their environment.
But also, your, the pressure of your environment is the dominant language is English so you learn. It's easier as time goes by to speak English because not only in the home but also in the, in your community everybody is speaking English.
(27:59):
But my grandparents, still to the moment, as long as I, as long as they lived had very thick Tagalog accents.
You know, and love, I loved listening to them. I loved listening to their stories, actually one of my greatest losses is oral history that I had taken of my grandmother, because she, the way, just her voice is a beautiful memory, ear memory.
(28:32):
Maybe one day it'll, it'll resurface but
yeah, it's an important part of who I am.
Yeah, and I think about that in terms of fast forward to today and we're talking about deep listening and how that must have sort of primed you for your interest in listening and vocalization.
(28:58):
I suppose so.
I think what also primed me is that when my mother was a very, a very beautiful singer. She had a beautiful voice.
And my father has actually no musicality whatsoever.
I really love that dynamic that I lived in is that she would have this gorgeous voice, and I knew exactly where it was attributed to my, my ability to sing.
(29:29):
And my father, he gave me a whole other set of somethings, like, I think my sense of humor and just the way he is, the way he is his being.
But he has like no rhythm, no musicality, like nothing, nothing.
(29:52):
It's fascinating because I haven't met too many people like that. Like, to some extent, you know, most people have musicality of some kind.
But I love it. I love it when he calls me on my birthday and sings Happy Birthday to me.
It's the most unique version of Happy Birthday.
You'll ever hear.
(30:14):
I love that. I love it. I embrace that I embrace the fact that my mother had this beautiful, like pristine voice and, and he just had the moxie.
Yeah.
But,
(30:35):
yeah, I have to think on that a little more. I hadn't really thought about language and the cultural, the cultural divide of language and how that could inform my listening practice.
Have you found that to be in your own listening.
(30:57):
Well, you know, I was raised with my father and his family speaking Chinese, my mother and her family speaking Swiss German, which is Swiss German.
And then, together as we grew up, we, we gravitated slowly slowly slowly to speaking of course English, all the time.
(31:21):
So, as time went on.
My parents ended up just setting settling on English. But when we went to the various families, the Chinese family everybody hang out and spoke Chinese, of course.
Yeah, yeah.
But as time went by it. My father's, my father lost his hold on his Chinese language, because he was being westernized I mean he had to you know it was English was everywhere and it was his not his native language so he had to adjust and learn how to speak it and
(32:06):
how to speak it properly. And my mother was, I mean, my mother was educated in English, as well as in in Switzerland, because she was raised in Switzerland.
And so, she came to the United States relatively young so she transitioned over to English, quite easily, because it was already part of her education. But again going to her families, her families, gatherings.
(32:39):
They were a little bit, they were considerably more westernized because they actually I don't know why, to tell you the truth now that I think about it.
Maybe they adapted a little bit easier for some reason.
Yeah, because my mother's family came rather late in their lives too.
(33:00):
So, but maybe it was because German, I mean, English was a little bit more present in Switzerland at the time than it is, is, it was in my father's community my father's community was a very rural Chinese community in northern Vancouver.
(33:21):
Wow, what an interesting. That's an interesting meet cute.
Parents. Well, the most bizarre part is the way they met was they lived across the street from each other.
When they were adults.
Late teens, late teens, they grew up together. So, oh yeah, yeah, basically yeah.
(33:46):
And then literally lived across the streets from each other.
The Chinese on one side and the Swiss on the other.
It's like a cool neighborhood.
I think it could have only happened in Berkeley, California, you know.
You know Berkeley is a university town and people from all everywhere in the world, show, show up there and live there so it's possible to have people from different cultures down the street around the corner, up the band, where, so where did Vancouver come in.
(34:20):
My, that was where my father was born and raised.
Okay, and then they moved to Berkeley.
He and his brothers, his brother and his sisters moved to Berkeley.
Oh, interesting.
Yeah, so they just developed a thing for each other.
(34:48):
And then both families said when they realized what was going on this they backed off and they said no, no, no, no, no, no, no, you cannot do that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Because it was illegal at the time you know.
Oh, an interracial interracial relationship much less marriage was illegal.
When, when was this, when was this late 40s, late 40s. Yeah, yeah.
(35:15):
Yeah, my, my parents met in 7071 70s.
Things have changed. Oh yeah, quite a bit since from then.
Yeah.
But it was unusual, I think it's completely took them through them both for a loop.
(35:39):
My dad, my dad is like one of the most notorious Scorpio's like deep deep Scorpio's got like he's got a deep well of information that I haven't been able to tease out of him yet about, about how they met, really and it's been it's he's like a stone, I've been
trying to crack for years.
(36:02):
And, you know how some of those still waters run deep, you know, one of those.
But,
but yeah he that's interesting I, it was, it's so interesting how love happens across cultures.
(36:23):
And it's come spontaneously like that. I think my parents are similar. He was stationed in Savannah after Vietnam he was in Vietnam for about a year, and I'm having been stationed there.
And they met on a blind date.
(36:44):
But, yeah, I think, I think he threw her off her plan.
Yeah, I think my mother had a much more sensible plan than to marry my dad.
Yeah, it's amazing how life can throw you to throw a loop.
(37:05):
Yeah, yeah.
So, those, oh, you have all these recordings and you're gathering the stories of your family's immigration.
Is that something that you see as a, as a piece all together in the future.
(37:28):
Yeah, I think so.
Most of the performative performance artwork I've done.
I refuse to say they're finished.
I've always just called them experiments.
And so, yeah, what's next it's always up, it's always everything's on the table.
(37:51):
In my earlier performance artwork. I was doing translations of my dreams. I was doing adaptations of my dreams into performance.
And I did a lot of work that I didn't really ever consider the pollen and I own probably my, my greatest advocates to to getting it on, just putting it on, put it on, just do it.
(38:24):
And I think that's the beauty of it's not about products about process and even in a work that's not fully formed, it can, it deserves to be performed, and you know, or worked out, like, so a lot of my work has been workshops of things like sketches and.
(38:50):
Experiments.
And a lot of it is very internal, an internal life brought forth in different in different ways.
And,
I have to say I mean to be quite honest with you and it no, it's might be a little silly. I've never, I definitely my life has never been a straight line.
(39:20):
And very curvy and roundabout in a lot of ways and I've had to learn to trust that process for a long time.
Well, there's probably a reason for that but I, it's like in Native American, Native American warriors that ride the ride the saddle backwards into battle.
(39:58):
You know there's a certain level of trust.
I don't know that story.
Yeah, I mean there's a history of, of certain warriors being the ones that ride backwards.
I don't know the whole story either I wish I could tell you. So that it could be but there's a deck of cards. It's an Oracle deck that is called the power deck.
(40:33):
And there's one card called trust. And it tells a story of, of the Native American warriors are right backwards into battle, and it may be it's a distraction maybe it's a technique of to distract the enemy to throw them off, you know, a little bit, but I don't have any enemies
(40:59):
you know it's just really me and maybe myself.
Kind of not knowing my own path.
But I'm okay with that.
I'm not an academic in a lot of ways.
I don't approach my work that way.
I don't really approach the things that my desire to learn is is a little more intuitive and
(41:33):
and resonance all about the resonance of what I'm feeling or what I would what I'm yearning to learn.
And that's, that's where the dream work of like working with I own and in our show you know the dream life radio has been a really beautiful unfolding because you just don't know what.
(41:59):
You don't have any expectation about it. But just the subject matter in and of itself it's like, so rich, you know, so much to mine there, just from an individual, you know, from my own dreams, you know, from my
a little bit more about the dream life radio.
Okay.
(42:30):
So, I'm a dream woman. And it's all about fostering, you know, a dream community, a dream community is one that talking about your dreams is an everyday.
It's an everyday common task.
(42:52):
You know,
I'm not talking about your dreams.
Not interpreting it's not about interpretation. It's not about trying to tell you what it is that you're dreaming or anything like that. It's really about experiencing others dreams like it's like they're your own.
(43:19):
The quantum dreaming aspect which I love my own talks, really eloquent about where you tell me your dream I'm listening to your dream. I'm having a version of your dream while I'm listening to your dream, then, then you're having a version of my version of your
dream when I tell you what my version is, and it just keeps going. And then you have a new version and it just keeps, it just keeps going like a, like those multiple the multiple face goddess, you know, that just always turning and always turning.
(43:58):
And if you build a dream community on that concept.
I mean that's where I go in the idea that it's just, I don't know maybe maybe our greatest purpose. Who knows.
(44:23):
Wow.
It's way bigger than I didn't expect us to be going there.
Yeah, listening to dreams and you're listening to other people's dreams.
(44:49):
That's really, that's really fascinating.
Yeah, I mean imagine, imagine.
A dream.
Imagine what, what our world could be if we just shared our dreams with each other, like, and and had versions of each other's dreams and constant retelling of our
(45:12):
becomes one big dream.
I think a lot of problems could be solved.
Yeah.
Again, it's like a it's like a, it's like a.
A lot of problems can be solved by just slicing it with a sword, you know, like, just let it like, get it done. But then I think that the more existential issues the crises, the problems that we have.
(45:49):
They don't you can't really go at it straight ahead.
I think that, or, I don't know how effective it is, you can, I don't know, it would take.
It would take centuries and centuries and centuries like look at us now we're not, we haven't really changed as a humanity.
It's centuries and century thousands of years later we're still.
(46:12):
We're still like relearning the same lesson over and over and over and over again.
So, if you take a more indigenous approach because in the indigenous communities, they really embrace.
Some of them, like the aboriginals embrace dreaming into their everyday life they talk about it in in community they talk with the family, you know, they, they've actually listened to the dreaming of the elders and of the young, young ones and
(46:47):
they have conversations and they learn and troubleshoot and they problem solve with with these dreams in mind, because they are all one there they all they, it's known that all the dreams are connected, no matter who is dreaming.
And that it matters, it really matters.
(47:10):
So amazing to think about because in Western society dream is dreaming is repressed.
And the talk conversations about dreams are often about how people are freaked out by their dreaming night before.
Other than that it's. We don't savor our dreams we don't share our dreams.
(47:35):
And so it's an interesting thing to think about as as dreaming as being a part of living, just like walking or talking.
And that, and that they tell us stories about our world and how, how we, we are living in it.
Yeah.
Yeah, just last night when we had the show. I was retelling a dream. And I prefaced it by saying that I, I wish that I had written it down, because I lost some details.
(48:07):
And I was just like no dream worries no dream worries.
Just, just would tell us what you do remember and.
(48:28):
And that. Well yeah that's okay, it's okay.
But the telling is the important part like the imparting of it is really important. Yeah.
At least to me I think I tell you it's like I think we're 29 shows in and I'm I'm like, fascinated at how how the conversation is changed is shaping me.
(48:56):
I think about my dreams every week. I had no idea. I had no idea. And to bring others on on to and talk about their dreams.
So, when you listen to other people's dreams that influences or impacts your world in a way.
Well yeah, especially if we're doing dream action theater.
(49:18):
Dream action with theater with you. I can't. No, no, no, no. We've been doing next time you come back on.
But we've been doing it more and more.
And I was a little nervous when we were talking about the idea of doing spontaneous stream action performances on the radio because, you know, it can get wacky.
(49:40):
And tell us a little bit of what dream action theater is.
Well, dream action theater is basically spontaneous improvisations that come, come through from listening to a dream.
And so, being a vocalist to do a lot of vocal vocalizing.
(50:04):
It's not interpretation. It's actual, like, oh, you're telling me in your dream you're walking down the street and I'm acting it out.
Like, okay, I'm walking down the street and I feel sad. And, you know, my dream action could be something like
(50:36):
sort of a, I don't know, a feeling or emotion that comes from my version of the dream. So it's a spontaneous version of the dream from each player. So I own a night and Jaguar Mary have been doing these spontaneous versions of the dream as it's being told.
(50:58):
And then when we did the dream tent last weekend so you know we're in the 29th Dream Festival, folks.
And we had the dream tent in Kingston last week and we had a bunch of performances and we did a lot of dream action theater.
And it got a lot of new dream action players which are also Earth Opera folk that are, you know, they're very much in the same sphere of being open and receptive to improvisation.
(51:32):
So, that's it in a nutshell, basically, dream action theater.
It's very satisfying. So you were enact you're starting to enact this also on the radio.
Which one on your radio program. Yeah.
Yeah, next time you if you bring, bring us a dream we'll perform it.
(51:58):
My dreams hide from me.
Oh, do they. Yes.
Yes, you're, you know they're happening but
I usually don't know they're happening.
You know I usually wake up with a things to do list.
I don't think of that as a dream.
(52:22):
Maybe you should consider it.
It's really tawdry and boring.
I kind of like that. In the past, I, the first year I ever did my own taxes. I did. I did a performance piece called a fine romance, like a finance romance, a fine romance.
(53:02):
And then I had all this paper from, from the tax prep that I created a backing track of my own mumblings and fumblings with paper and, and did this whole performance around like a movement piece with the paper and that concept of
(53:30):
navigating.
Yeah, something that's like so, so like dry and
ends up being like one of my favorite pieces.
When I think back.
Just because I wanted to throw the paper up in the air when I was in the process. And so when I did the performance I was able to throw the paper in the air, and to do whatever I wanted with that paper, and throw it to the wind.
(54:01):
And so in a way there's the pieces have been ritualistic in a way of processing the experience.
I think basically that deep listening as a practice, because it has different modalities it's not just about listening and it's about the dreaming and it's about the movement, you know, the way your body moves through response to listening that
(54:37):
I found myself circling those three as a, you know pathway of experience, you know, all along.
I was more like into the movement part the dreaming years ago, maybe like 10 years ago, I wasn't really into the dreaming, but the, when I was vocalizing when I was performing more it's more about movement it was more about listening.
(55:04):
So, you know, when it comes to the practice when Pauline used to say that it's for the ear minded people, it's for your minded people.
And that's kind of a misleading to because when you are listening body when you have a listening body of your body is listening to vibration, your whole body.
(55:34):
If you need to listen, then it's not just about the ear at all.
And then it gets it impacts the body through through vibration.
(55:57):
Right, right. Yeah.
And then here without vibration so one influences the other.
Yeah, you can hear your, your thing your skin can feel vibration. Yeah.
So I, that's always one of my favorite practices with walking meditations is a walk. Listen like you have ears on the soles of your feet.
(56:33):
Mm hmm.
Yeah, or your whole body.
So I wanted to talk a little bit in our last few minutes a little bit more about your vocalist works and I love, I really loved how you actually inserted a few sounds in our, in our chat.
(57:00):
I know that you had mentioned earlier of course that you're not working on anything in particular right now but you're sort of stepping into this opera that that you had mentioned before.
I wanted to hear a little bit about your directions and vocalization at this point.
(57:23):
My directions and vocalization.
Hmm. It seems so natural for you, you know when you were talking about dreaming and you mentioned the sounds.
You vocalized your dreaming experience and that came out so naturally and so beautifully.
(57:49):
Um,
yeah I, I think that I, I've become very comfortable been very comfortable with exploring the field. These days.
Vocally.
(58:11):
I think of like, I imagine when I say explore the field that if I were standing out on a Vista.
Or in a room with a with a lot of different features that there's a lot of opportunities to vocalize in a bunch of different ways.
(58:35):
It could be a response to the external environment, but it could also be what's going on in my inner world.
And I can't really say, but I'm very open to exploring in a lot of different ways that that concept. So, doing traditional theater again, which I haven't done in an age, I think it's probably been 15 years or so has been really turning me on because
(59:14):
I really love the, I love the container of traditional theater.
There's something really satisfying about knowing the formula of it.
The formula of a beginning, middle and end, and, you know, the expectations of, of the technical end of things.
(59:44):
I'm really open to seeing where that might lead in the next few years.
I'm very much out vocally experimenting and, you know, fishing vocally fishing a bit vocally
fisherman, fisherwoman.
(01:00:19):
I am so spontaneous in that way.
In my vocal ways.
And I'm very comfortable there.
A lot of people, a lot of people are like, Do you have any recordings and don't have a ton of like solo recordings, a lot of field recordings and things. But, um, I guess that's where, again, that's, I guess that's my upbringing with Pauline and I own about that it be about
(01:00:47):
process and not product. So moving through that, and I'll finally come to some product.
That sounds like a perfect moment to say thank you, Lisa.
Welcome.
This was really so nice.
Nice to have nice to listen in to your thoughts about listening.
(01:01:10):
Thank you for tuning into this episode of listening with China Blue.
I hope it inspires you to build your own listening practice.
This begins as a daily practice of attentively listening without judgment.
And you can ask yourself, what is your own version of a silence.
The music for this podcast is from China Blues Saturn Walk, co composed with Lance Massey, the creator of the T-Mobile ringtone.
(01:01:40):
If you want to learn more about me and my work, go to ChinaBlueArt.com.
And also, please follow me on Facebook at China.Blue.Art, at Instagram at China underscore blue underscore art, and on X at ChinaBlueArt.
Welcome to listening with China Blue.
(00:03):
This is a podcast that focuses on how listening not only informs us about what is occurring in the world around us,
but also helps us connect with others,
build stronger businesses,
strengthens our mental health,
and become more creative and compassionate individuals.
As more and more people practice attentive listening in a community,
(00:23):
it becomes a community building practice that
strengthens our mental health as we learn from our neighbors.
I will be interviewing people from all walks of life to learn how listening has informed them in their field
and help them to make intelligent decisions.
They will be artists, musicians, composers, dancers, business people, psychologists, neuroscientists, and Buddhists, to name a few.
(00:51):
About me, I'm an internationally exhibiting sound-based artist.
In my work, Discovering Unheard Sounds, I realized that the core component that drove my work was simply listening.
That realization put me on the path of speaking about and helping people learn to become better listeners.
(01:11):
I began with leading sound walks, which I continue to do in the upstate New York region,
to help people learn to listen from nature.
And now, tune your ears to this podcast to learn about the power of listening.
And do pay attention until the end for further information on how to start your own listening practice,
(01:34):
share it with others, and to support listening with China Blue.
So today we're speaking with Lisa Kelly.
Lisa is a vocalist, performance artist, and mother residing in Kingston, New York.
Steeped in traditional theater, vocal, and performance studies in her youth,
Lisa's creative process continues to revolve around investigations of identity, musical genres and styles,
(02:02):
dream action theater, her family's immigration memories from the Philippines, universal archetypes,
Eastern philosophy, and a recognition of the metaphysical and spiritual.
Lisa's performances and writing explore womanhood, grief and loss,
dreams and the confluence of the self and nature, and the cosmos.
(02:26):
She spent 12 years working closely with Paulina Loveras and Ayaan as a staff member and artist of the Deep Listening Institute,
performing in numerous festivals and concerts, and collaborating with fellow deep listening artists across the globe.
Lisa is a deep listening certificate holder and an ordained high priestess and board member of the Ministry of Mahat.
(02:52):
Lisa is currently the founding executive director in the Kingston Midtown Arts District and an arts commissioner for the City of Kingston.
Welcome Lisa.
Hi, I'm happy to be here, China.
I am so happy to have you after all these years of knowing you. I'm so excited to be able to invite you to talk to you about your work.
(03:16):
Oh my gosh, that's amazing. I'm so honored.
Well, you know, you have a unique approach because you're a creative person that has, that's, as you say, steeped in theater.
But you also have been highly influenced by Paulina Loveras and the Deep Listening Institute and, you know, I, it, as an artist I was thinking that experience must have had some, I was going to say deep, you know, I was trying to avoid the using the word deep because it's going to be used forever now.
(03:57):
Yeah, it starts to not mean anything anymore.
But it's no, but it does actually it really does. Yeah. Profound. Profound. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, and layers. Yeah.
I wanted to talk to you about how it influenced your work.
Well, firstly, I didn't know really anything about Pauline when I first came to the deep listening space in about 2003.
(04:30):
I was mostly concerned as a vocalist to expanding my field of understanding and of how to express vocally, you know, lots of different ways.
It was actually I own your first guest on this podcast that came that really brought me into the space and then, and then the community brought me secondly to the space.
(05:01):
And I was always in the, you know, in the background of deep listening space that I really didn't know who she was. And, and so when I, when I facilitate a deep listening workshop I really say that deep listening came came at me from the side not at my face like
directly in my ear. It was a very kind of unconscious choice that came that came through I learned, just by being, being present with Pauline and I own and in the work and mission of the deep listening Institute, and then realized just how prolific
(05:48):
she is, is and has been for, you know, 50 years and I was like, Oh, mind blown. Okay, that was about like five years into my job.
And she still continues to unfold her, her, her legacy continues to unfold today.
(06:11):
Yeah, absolutely.
And, you know, and I know that last year, you participated in the 24 hour drone experiments and sound and music at the Basilica Hudson. Yes, yes, that was a wonderful invitation.
I wanted to, you know, for those that don't know the heart chant you, you facilitated the heart chant which is an offering of sonic healing for all beings through vocalization and listening. And this was written by Pauline in response to terrorist attacks on
(06:47):
September 11. Yes.
The heart chance instructions invite people to basically create a community through sound.
Tell us how you did that at the drone festival.
Oh, wow.
I think the, the text score is that you could do it with any number of people. I mean, I've done it with a group of five or six people up to, you know, 150 to 200 people.
(07:24):
I think maybe for the drone fest.
It was probably closer to that number over 200 people.
And it was definitely not just me, there was a bunch of plants, I had a bunch of helpers to listening plants.
And so to basically shepherd everyone into a circle. And Sarah Van Buren, who was one of the organizers of the event is also a deep listening certificate holder was able to, you know, kind of prime, prime the program, and to get everyone who had been sleeping
(08:06):
overnight so this was the closing activity of the, of the whole event.
And she had placed the score around the Basilica.
And so people could read it at their leisure, and throughout the day and evening.
And so that seemed to really work because it, it's very gentle, it was very gentle introduction.
(08:35):
And so, and then everyone had been in the drone fest, like, you know, for 24 hours.
And they were like highly receptive, you know, they were all sleepy and highly receptive.
You just had to rouse them off of their palates and sleeping bags and cushions and things, and.
(08:57):
And really, the, the mastery really of Pauline's scores is the utter simplicity of the instructions.
They, they really is effortless really.
As long as you give the introduction about.
(09:19):
Well I don't even think you need an introduction to what deep listening is, and shit, especially at an event like that because it's just, they're so open.
When you're been in a constant drone for 24 hours, your ears are just primed and tuned up and, you know, consciously and subconsciously and unconsciously and collectively so it's a really cool event that way.
(09:47):
And so the heart chant was just such a beautiful offering for F for people who had been had been opened up willingly opened up sonically.
So it was pretty easy to do.
Pretty easy to accomplish, and it was really beautiful.
(10:11):
I have heard stories from people who have actually participated.
And they've told me that it was so amazingly powerful to be a part of that, that the experience is just not just the, not the vocalization part, but how participating with all these other people in a room vocalizing simultaneously was so powerful.
(10:40):
Yes, yes.
And the, and the, the consent of touching your neighbor.
Where you put your hand on the back of the back of the heart space of the person to your left, and you put your hand on your own heart center on the front.
So, there's a loop that happens a feedback loop, physical, that's very physical as you're sounding.
(11:10):
And that is, it's, it's very powerful.
Because, yeah, you're, you're actually touching the heart centers of every person within that loop.
Oh my.
It's incredible. It's incredible feeling. I can't get enough of it.
(11:31):
That's like really, really down to the root of how we're connected.
I think that we should have a place where it's done on a regular basis.
I agree. I agree. Yeah, we need a heart chant center for healing.
Just so everybody can feel the hearts and the love of the people around them.
(11:54):
Yeah, we did that for the tribute concert in Kingston for Pauline.
Not long after she passed at City Hall, and in the council chambers which is like the upper floor of the City Hall and it's a fairly historic building built in the 19th century, and with really high ceilings and
(12:23):
a beautiful view of the mountains and we all managed to squeeze ourselves around to form a circle.
And it was incredible.
Rainbows came through the windows. Oh no. During, during the heart chant.
(12:44):
No, it was, it was wild. It was like a signal, like, you know, from Pauline and we were on the right track here.
Yeah, yeah.
Really beautiful.
The heart chant seems to always leave a signature behind in my memory, every time I've ever done it.
(13:08):
Yeah. And how many times have you done it.
Oh, I don't know I didn't really haven't really kept count.
But I own was facilitating a lot to in the last couple years.
And Pauline would do it.
(13:32):
Fair amount. I don't know and in the last 15 years I really have no idea.
I don't remember the feeling of each one.
But it putting it that way over a span of 15 years gives it some perspective.
Yeah, yeah, it ends up being kind of multi dimensional in terms of the experience. Like, each time it's a layer added.
(13:56):
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
So, stepping away from Pauline and I owns direct influence on you.
Tell me about your, some of the creative work that you're doing now.
(14:17):
Well, I took a bit of a, I mean, from an outward creative standpoint, a bit of a hiatus while raising my son.
But I also, you know, tangential to working with Pauline and I own I was also learning a lot about Linda Mary Montana's work with the Art Life Institute.
(14:40):
And her, her philosophy is that art is life and life is art her long stamina endurance pieces are really a testament to everyday life being an art practice.
If you choose it to be. And, and so I really, I really took that as a license that I could, you know, take a break from performative in the traditional sense on a stage and from an audience to to how it could apply to my everyday life how creativity can apply to the
(15:22):
individualist acts in, you know, with no witness, no witnesses spectators.
And, and so I've been meditating on that, since my son was a toddler. And now that he's 10, I'm in the last couple of years I've been moving into get my chops back in theater and working and, as you know, with the Earth Opera with Elizabeth Clark's Earth Opera
(15:54):
at widow Jane mine and Rosendale, which is one of my favorite spots.
And, and being an executive director for an arts organization that primarily focuses on visual arts as as as the source of the material of creativity has been also how I can apply my creativity to that position.
(16:22):
And so, yeah, it's, it's, it's shifted forms from performance art and recording albums and collaborating in that way to to to this director this leadership work, and this community building work, which also needs creativity in it, you know, and.
(16:51):
Yeah, and, and a lot of listening.
Yeah.
And how, how does listening get folded into that creative work.
Well, it has everything to do with the creative work.
(17:22):
You know, from, from our youth workforce training teenagers to to legacy holding of, you know, one of our most important community art leaders, Benjamin Wakefall here in Kingston, as a visionary printmaker and you know really listening to those legacies
(17:47):
Pauline being at the deep listening space.
You know holding those legacies.
They reverberate my ears. I think that I love the concept that Pauline has brought forward about that your ears are always open. They're always receiving information.
And if you're cognizant enough to be receptive to what that information could be in all its different forms.
(18:17):
It.
It definitely informs me, you know, it informs how I approach everything, everything I learn everything that I hear from others.
You know all of the things that I read all the conflicts that come from doing community work.
(18:40):
You know the intergenerational conflicts that can arise. There's just so much differences in language between generations.
I'm not saying the same words but they're completely different. You know, the way that you say them. And so yeah, really being very sensitive to that in my work, particular. Yeah.
(19:07):
Nice.
It's practice right China.
Practice.
Perfect process and a practice. That's how I always frame it as a practice because it's something that you're doing all that you should be doing all the time.
Yeah.
(19:29):
And you could get revelations they come and go.
I tend to forget a lot and I'm always trying to remember, or not trying but I am remembering to remember.
And I forget again, and, and then I have this grand revelation and, and then go on to the next thing and then, you know, it's a process it's a journey it's a beautiful, it's a beautiful way to approach life.
(19:55):
Yeah.
Well, I also wanted to ask you a question about your family's immigration memories from the Philippines I noticed that in your bio.
Uh huh. Yes.
Can you tell me a little bit about that.
(20:19):
Yeah, actually that is something in the background of my life. Gathering the stories, I think that I think every they say every, every other or every two or three generations there's a record keeper, and in each family.
And I've been driven to, since I was a kid. Oh wow. To gather information about my, my family's story.
(20:51):
So my, my mother's side of the family immigrated to the United States from the Philippines in the post World War Two, 1942, believe, and my mother was about seven.
(21:12):
Six or seven.
And my grandfather was in the US Army.
And he was able to bring the whole family to become naturalized in the United States.
And so, they were.
(21:33):
They were based in Savannah, Georgia. A lot of a lot of Filipinos ended up being stationed in San Francisco in the Bay Area, or other parts of California.
And for some reason, and I don't really know exactly why yet.
They were, he was stationed in Savannah, Georgia.
(21:54):
And so, being a brown person in Savannah, Georgia in the 50s. They were the brownest people in their school.
Along with a couple of black students.
(22:18):
And so, I was a survivor and I learned why I had was having trouble connecting to other Filipinos when I got older, because I, the only heritage that were of our culture that was maintained was the food, really, and our, our Catholic upbringings.
(22:40):
And, I mean, that was Spanish colonialism. So anyway, it's very layered. Anyway, so I've been trying to get the stories together, you know, along with, I've been getting my DNA and of course, the Filipino side of like, those DNA tests are, are pretty loose, and not that the recordings are not very clear.
(23:02):
So I've been, I've been getting oral histories from my aunts and uncles to piece together the story, the story of my mother's immigration.
My father, on the other hand is, you know, 10 or 12 generations.
(23:25):
Northeastern New Englanders.
And so, there's a bit of an immigration, a migration on my grandmother's side, where she doesn't know a lot of her heritage, and that's kind of a, that's a bit of a mystery to my father's side.
(23:46):
And so she was born in Kansas, and then moved to California. So anyway, we're a bit of a migratory family as most are.
So, yeah, it's a very American story in some ways. Yeah, yeah.
Oh, and during COVID there was a lot of reckoning around black and brown identities in America. And I read this really fascinating book, can't remember the author, it's called Brown Skin White Mind.
(24:20):
And, and it was really about the Asian experience of, of my generation, and having been whitewashed, our identities being whitewashed and what does that, what does it really bear because, you know, I think that mostly I perceived white.
(24:44):
But then there's always that question of, what do you got in there, Lisa? What's in there?
That's something going on. Like, you know, that question.
Well, in looking at you, you look very Caucasian.
And so that's one of the reasons why I brought it up because I thought, gee, this is a shock for me to see this as a part of your family history. And for me it's particularly interesting because I'm also a hapa, as the Hawaiians say, which is me, it means half Asian and half Caucasian.
(25:23):
Yes. And I'm half Chinese, but nobody would guess it because
I look more, well, I look, I don't look Chinese. So if you don't look Chinese and obviously you must be Caucasian. That's the assumption.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. A lot of people would miss, would always ask me if I was Native American.
(25:46):
Oh.
I've had Native American in me, in my blood. And I don't know if I actually do. I'm not even sure about that. But it's like that otherness, you know, there's always this little bit of otherness that stood me apart.
It stood my brother apart from growing up in a small town in North Carolina, where everybody's kind of a cousin with each other, which is not an exaggeration.
(26:15):
So I know that's kind of a trope, but it, you know, everyone is like fourth and fifth cousins.
Yeah.
So, I think I always sort of, it was a part of my identity, not of being another even though, and I don't really look at.
(26:36):
Well, I know, and I often think about that familiar environment where in my family I was raised with lots of sounds of different languages.
Oh, okay. So, I don't know if, did you have that experience? Did you hear Filipino?
Tagalog.
(26:57):
Excuse me, that was wrong. Tagalog speaking in your family as well as English.
Yes, my grandparents spoke Tagalog.
And my, my aunts, my mother and my aunts and uncles.
They understood it but they didn't speak it.
And I found, I always found that fascinating that they could understand it, but not really speak it.
(27:25):
I realize now that they were encouraged not to speak it. They were encouraged to speak English as to assimilate to their environment.
But also, your, the pressure of your environment is the dominant language is English so you learn. It's easier as time goes by to speak English because not only in the home but also in the, in your community everybody is speaking English.
(27:59):
But my grandparents, still to the moment, as long as I, as long as they lived had very thick Tagalog accents.
You know, and love, I loved listening to them. I loved listening to their stories, actually one of my greatest losses is oral history that I had taken of my grandmother, because she, the way, just her voice is a beautiful memory, ear memory.
(28:32):
Maybe one day it'll, it'll resurface but
yeah, it's an important part of who I am.
Yeah, and I think about that in terms of fast forward to today and we're talking about deep listening and how that must have sort of primed you for your interest in listening and vocalization.
(28:58):
I suppose so.
I think what also primed me is that when my mother was a very, a very beautiful singer. She had a beautiful voice.
And my father has actually no musicality whatsoever.
I really love that dynamic that I lived in is that she would have this gorgeous voice, and I knew exactly where it was attributed to my, my ability to sing.
(29:29):
And my father, he gave me a whole other set of somethings, like, I think my sense of humor and just the way he is, the way he is his being.
But he has like no rhythm, no musicality, like nothing, nothing.
(29:52):
It's fascinating because I haven't met too many people like that. Like, to some extent, you know, most people have musicality of some kind.
But I love it. I love it when he calls me on my birthday and sings Happy Birthday to me.
It's the most unique version of Happy Birthday.
You'll ever hear.
(30:14):
I love that. I love it. I embrace that I embrace the fact that my mother had this beautiful, like pristine voice and, and he just had the moxie.
Yeah.
But,
(30:35):
yeah, I have to think on that a little more. I hadn't really thought about language and the cultural, the cultural divide of language and how that could inform my listening practice.
Have you found that to be in your own listening.
(30:57):
Well, you know, I was raised with my father and his family speaking Chinese, my mother and her family speaking Swiss German, which is Swiss German.
And then, together as we grew up, we, we gravitated slowly slowly slowly to speaking of course English, all the time.
(31:21):
So, as time went on.
My parents ended up just setting settling on English. But when we went to the various families, the Chinese family everybody hang out and spoke Chinese, of course.
Yeah, yeah.
But as time went by it. My father's, my father lost his hold on his Chinese language, because he was being westernized I mean he had to you know it was English was everywhere and it was his not his native language so he had to adjust and learn how to speak it and
(32:06):
how to speak it properly. And my mother was, I mean, my mother was educated in English, as well as in in Switzerland, because she was raised in Switzerland.
And so, she came to the United States relatively young so she transitioned over to English, quite easily, because it was already part of her education. But again going to her families, her families, gatherings.
(32:39):
They were a little bit, they were considerably more westernized because they actually I don't know why, to tell you the truth now that I think about it.
Maybe they adapted a little bit easier for some reason.
Yeah, because my mother's family came rather late in their lives too.
(33:00):
So, but maybe it was because German, I mean, English was a little bit more present in Switzerland at the time than it is, is, it was in my father's community my father's community was a very rural Chinese community in northern Vancouver.
(33:21):
Wow, what an interesting. That's an interesting meet cute.
Parents. Well, the most bizarre part is the way they met was they lived across the street from each other.
When they were adults.
Late teens, late teens, they grew up together. So, oh yeah, yeah, basically yeah.
(33:46):
And then literally lived across the streets from each other.
The Chinese on one side and the Swiss on the other.
It's like a cool neighborhood.
I think it could have only happened in Berkeley, California, you know.
You know Berkeley is a university town and people from all everywhere in the world, show, show up there and live there so it's possible to have people from different cultures down the street around the corner, up the band, where, so where did Vancouver come in.
(34:20):
My, that was where my father was born and raised.
Okay, and then they moved to Berkeley.
He and his brothers, his brother and his sisters moved to Berkeley.
Oh, interesting.
Yeah, so they just developed a thing for each other.
(34:48):
And then both families said when they realized what was going on this they backed off and they said no, no, no, no, no, no, no, you cannot do that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Because it was illegal at the time you know.
Oh, an interracial interracial relationship much less marriage was illegal.
When, when was this, when was this late 40s, late 40s. Yeah, yeah.
(35:15):
Yeah, my, my parents met in 7071 70s.
Things have changed. Oh yeah, quite a bit since from then.
Yeah.
But it was unusual, I think it's completely took them through them both for a loop.
(35:39):
My dad, my dad is like one of the most notorious Scorpio's like deep deep Scorpio's got like he's got a deep well of information that I haven't been able to tease out of him yet about, about how they met, really and it's been it's he's like a stone, I've been
trying to crack for years.
(36:02):
And, you know how some of those still waters run deep, you know, one of those.
But,
but yeah he that's interesting I, it was, it's so interesting how love happens across cultures.
(36:23):
And it's come spontaneously like that. I think my parents are similar. He was stationed in Savannah after Vietnam he was in Vietnam for about a year, and I'm having been stationed there.
And they met on a blind date.
(36:44):
But, yeah, I think, I think he threw her off her plan.
Yeah, I think my mother had a much more sensible plan than to marry my dad.
Yeah, it's amazing how life can throw you to throw a loop.
(37:05):
Yeah, yeah.
So, those, oh, you have all these recordings and you're gathering the stories of your family's immigration.
Is that something that you see as a, as a piece all together in the future.
(37:28):
Yeah, I think so.
Most of the performative performance artwork I've done.
I refuse to say they're finished.
I've always just called them experiments.
And so, yeah, what's next it's always up, it's always everything's on the table.
(37:51):
In my earlier performance artwork. I was doing translations of my dreams. I was doing adaptations of my dreams into performance.
And I did a lot of work that I didn't really ever consider the pollen and I own probably my, my greatest advocates to to getting it on, just putting it on, put it on, just do it.
(38:24):
And I think that's the beauty of it's not about products about process and even in a work that's not fully formed, it can, it deserves to be performed, and you know, or worked out, like, so a lot of my work has been workshops of things like sketches and.
(38:50):
Experiments.
And a lot of it is very internal, an internal life brought forth in different in different ways.
And,
I have to say I mean to be quite honest with you and it no, it's might be a little silly. I've never, I definitely my life has never been a straight line.
(39:20):
And very curvy and roundabout in a lot of ways and I've had to learn to trust that process for a long time.
Well, there's probably a reason for that but I, it's like in Native American, Native American warriors that ride the ride the saddle backwards into battle.
(39:58):
You know there's a certain level of trust.
I don't know that story.
Yeah, I mean there's a history of, of certain warriors being the ones that ride backwards.
I don't know the whole story either I wish I could tell you. So that it could be but there's a deck of cards. It's an Oracle deck that is called the power deck.
(40:33):
And there's one card called trust. And it tells a story of, of the Native American warriors are right backwards into battle, and it may be it's a distraction maybe it's a technique of to distract the enemy to throw them off, you know, a little bit, but I don't have any enemies
(40:59):
you know it's just really me and maybe myself.
Kind of not knowing my own path.
But I'm okay with that.
I'm not an academic in a lot of ways.
I don't approach my work that way.
I don't really approach the things that my desire to learn is is a little more intuitive and
(41:33):
and resonance all about the resonance of what I'm feeling or what I would what I'm yearning to learn.
And that's, that's where the dream work of like working with I own and in our show you know the dream life radio has been a really beautiful unfolding because you just don't know what.
(41:59):
You don't have any expectation about it. But just the subject matter in and of itself it's like, so rich, you know, so much to mine there, just from an individual, you know, from my own dreams, you know, from my
a little bit more about the dream life radio.
Okay.
(42:30):
So, I'm a dream woman. And it's all about fostering, you know, a dream community, a dream community is one that talking about your dreams is an everyday.
It's an everyday common task.
(42:52):
You know,
I'm not talking about your dreams.
Not interpreting it's not about interpretation. It's not about trying to tell you what it is that you're dreaming or anything like that. It's really about experiencing others dreams like it's like they're your own.
(43:19):
The quantum dreaming aspect which I love my own talks, really eloquent about where you tell me your dream I'm listening to your dream. I'm having a version of your dream while I'm listening to your dream, then, then you're having a version of my version of your
dream when I tell you what my version is, and it just keeps going. And then you have a new version and it just keeps, it just keeps going like a, like those multiple the multiple face goddess, you know, that just always turning and always turning.
(43:58):
And if you build a dream community on that concept.
I mean that's where I go in the idea that it's just, I don't know maybe maybe our greatest purpose. Who knows.
(44:23):
Wow.
It's way bigger than I didn't expect us to be going there.
Yeah, listening to dreams and you're listening to other people's dreams.
(44:49):
That's really, that's really fascinating.
Yeah, I mean imagine, imagine.
A dream.
Imagine what, what our world could be if we just shared our dreams with each other, like, and and had versions of each other's dreams and constant retelling of our
(45:12):
becomes one big dream.
I think a lot of problems could be solved.
Yeah.
Again, it's like a it's like a, it's like a.
A lot of problems can be solved by just slicing it with a sword, you know, like, just let it like, get it done. But then I think that the more existential issues the crises, the problems that we have.
(45:49):
They don't you can't really go at it straight ahead.
I think that, or, I don't know how effective it is, you can, I don't know, it would take.
It would take centuries and centuries and centuries like look at us now we're not, we haven't really changed as a humanity.
It's centuries and century thousands of years later we're still.
(46:12):
We're still like relearning the same lesson over and over and over and over again.
So, if you take a more indigenous approach because in the indigenous communities, they really embrace.
Some of them, like the aboriginals embrace dreaming into their everyday life they talk about it in in community they talk with the family, you know, they, they've actually listened to the dreaming of the elders and of the young, young ones and
(46:47):
they have conversations and they learn and troubleshoot and they problem solve with with these dreams in mind, because they are all one there they all they, it's known that all the dreams are connected, no matter who is dreaming.
And that it matters, it really matters.
(47:10):
So amazing to think about because in Western society dream is dreaming is repressed.
And the talk conversations about dreams are often about how people are freaked out by their dreaming night before.
Other than that it's. We don't savor our dreams we don't share our dreams.
(47:35):
And so it's an interesting thing to think about as as dreaming as being a part of living, just like walking or talking.
And that, and that they tell us stories about our world and how, how we, we are living in it.
Yeah.
Yeah, just last night when we had the show. I was retelling a dream. And I prefaced it by saying that I, I wish that I had written it down, because I lost some details.
(48:07):
And I was just like no dream worries no dream worries.
Just, just would tell us what you do remember and.
(48:28):
And that. Well yeah that's okay, it's okay.
But the telling is the important part like the imparting of it is really important. Yeah.
At least to me I think I tell you it's like I think we're 29 shows in and I'm I'm like, fascinated at how how the conversation is changed is shaping me.
(48:56):
I think about my dreams every week. I had no idea. I had no idea. And to bring others on on to and talk about their dreams.
So, when you listen to other people's dreams that influences or impacts your world in a way.
Well yeah, especially if we're doing dream action theater.
(49:18):
Dream action with theater with you. I can't. No, no, no, no. We've been doing next time you come back on.
But we've been doing it more and more.
And I was a little nervous when we were talking about the idea of doing spontaneous stream action performances on the radio because, you know, it can get wacky.
(49:40):
And tell us a little bit of what dream action theater is.
Well, dream action theater is basically spontaneous improvisations that come, come through from listening to a dream.
And so, being a vocalist to do a lot of vocal vocalizing.
(50:04):
It's not interpretation. It's actual, like, oh, you're telling me in your dream you're walking down the street and I'm acting it out.
Like, okay, I'm walking down the street and I feel sad. And, you know, my dream action could be something like
(50:36):
sort of a, I don't know, a feeling or emotion that comes from my version of the dream. So it's a spontaneous version of the dream from each player. So I own a night and Jaguar Mary have been doing these spontaneous versions of the dream as it's being told.
(50:58):
And then when we did the dream tent last weekend so you know we're in the 29th Dream Festival, folks.
And we had the dream tent in Kingston last week and we had a bunch of performances and we did a lot of dream action theater.
And it got a lot of new dream action players which are also Earth Opera folk that are, you know, they're very much in the same sphere of being open and receptive to improvisation.
(51:32):
So, that's it in a nutshell, basically, dream action theater.
It's very satisfying. So you were enact you're starting to enact this also on the radio.
Which one on your radio program. Yeah.
Yeah, next time you if you bring, bring us a dream we'll perform it.
(51:58):
My dreams hide from me.
Oh, do they. Yes.
Yes, you're, you know they're happening but
I usually don't know they're happening.
You know I usually wake up with a things to do list.
I don't think of that as a dream.
(52:22):
Maybe you should consider it.
It's really tawdry and boring.
I kind of like that. In the past, I, the first year I ever did my own taxes. I did. I did a performance piece called a fine romance, like a finance romance, a fine romance.
(53:02):
And then I had all this paper from, from the tax prep that I created a backing track of my own mumblings and fumblings with paper and, and did this whole performance around like a movement piece with the paper and that concept of
(53:30):
navigating.
Yeah, something that's like so, so like dry and
ends up being like one of my favorite pieces.
When I think back.
Just because I wanted to throw the paper up in the air when I was in the process. And so when I did the performance I was able to throw the paper in the air, and to do whatever I wanted with that paper, and throw it to the wind.
(54:01):
And so in a way there's the pieces have been ritualistic in a way of processing the experience.
I think basically that deep listening as a practice, because it has different modalities it's not just about listening and it's about the dreaming and it's about the movement, you know, the way your body moves through response to listening that
(54:37):
I found myself circling those three as a, you know pathway of experience, you know, all along.
I was more like into the movement part the dreaming years ago, maybe like 10 years ago, I wasn't really into the dreaming, but the, when I was vocalizing when I was performing more it's more about movement it was more about listening.
(55:04):
So, you know, when it comes to the practice when Pauline used to say that it's for the ear minded people, it's for your minded people.
And that's kind of a misleading to because when you are listening body when you have a listening body of your body is listening to vibration, your whole body.
(55:34):
If you need to listen, then it's not just about the ear at all.
And then it gets it impacts the body through through vibration.
(55:57):
Right, right. Yeah.
And then here without vibration so one influences the other.
Yeah, you can hear your, your thing your skin can feel vibration. Yeah.
So I, that's always one of my favorite practices with walking meditations is a walk. Listen like you have ears on the soles of your feet.
(56:33):
Mm hmm.
Yeah, or your whole body.
So I wanted to talk a little bit in our last few minutes a little bit more about your vocalist works and I love, I really loved how you actually inserted a few sounds in our, in our chat.
(57:00):
I know that you had mentioned earlier of course that you're not working on anything in particular right now but you're sort of stepping into this opera that that you had mentioned before.
I wanted to hear a little bit about your directions and vocalization at this point.
(57:23):
My directions and vocalization.
Hmm. It seems so natural for you, you know when you were talking about dreaming and you mentioned the sounds.
You vocalized your dreaming experience and that came out so naturally and so beautifully.
(57:49):
Um,
yeah I, I think that I, I've become very comfortable been very comfortable with exploring the field. These days.
Vocally.
(58:11):
I think of like, I imagine when I say explore the field that if I were standing out on a Vista.
Or in a room with a with a lot of different features that there's a lot of opportunities to vocalize in a bunch of different ways.
(58:35):
It could be a response to the external environment, but it could also be what's going on in my inner world.
And I can't really say, but I'm very open to exploring in a lot of different ways that that concept. So, doing traditional theater again, which I haven't done in an age, I think it's probably been 15 years or so has been really turning me on because
(59:14):
I really love the, I love the container of traditional theater.
There's something really satisfying about knowing the formula of it.
The formula of a beginning, middle and end, and, you know, the expectations of, of the technical end of things.
(59:44):
I'm really open to seeing where that might lead in the next few years.
I'm very much out vocally experimenting and, you know, fishing vocally fishing a bit vocally
fisherman, fisherwoman.
(01:00:19):
I am so spontaneous in that way.
In my vocal ways.
And I'm very comfortable there.
A lot of people, a lot of people are like, Do you have any recordings and don't have a ton of like solo recordings, a lot of field recordings and things. But, um, I guess that's where, again, that's, I guess that's my upbringing with Pauline and I own about that it be about
(01:00:47):
process and not product. So moving through that, and I'll finally come to some product.
That sounds like a perfect moment to say thank you, Lisa.
Welcome.
This was really so nice.
Nice to have nice to listen in to your thoughts about listening.
(01:01:10):
Thank you for tuning into this episode of listening with China Blue.
I hope it inspires you to build your own listening practice.
This begins as a daily practice of attentively listening without judgment.
And you can ask yourself, what is your own version of a silence.
The music for this podcast is from China Blues Saturn Walk, co composed with Lance Massey, the creator of the T-Mobile ringtone.
(01:01:40):
If you want to learn more about me and my work, go to ChinaBlueArt.com.
And also, please follow me on Facebook at China.Blue.Art, at Instagram at China underscore blue underscore art, and on X at ChinaBlueArt.
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