Song Threads Workshop Series with Kristine Barrett / I: Lithuanian Sutartinės: Polyphony and Weaving
For millennia, textile arts have predominantly been the provenance of women, with singing as an integral companion and/or extension of these activities. Aural examples of the relationship between textile production and singing abound throughout the Baltic world, with sutartinės at the center. Ritual songs sung in 2, 3, or 4 parts, sutartinės are ancient women’s song forms mimicking the process of weaving. In this workshop, we will explore these themes via song; working on vocal technique, pronunciation, and cultural context.
No prior singing experience necessary, all genders and ages welcome.
Women’s voices are almost completely absent from our recorded histories and inherited mythologies. Ritual, folktale, weaving, and song become the keepers of invisible histories and hidden lives intimately connected with the spaces, activities, and landscapes they inhabit and leave behind. Inspired by the quote from George Eliot’s Middlemarch, Unvisited Tombs is a workshop series and research project developed by Kristine Barrett exploring women’s ancestral narratives; bringing forth the voices of women from various traditions all over the world via their respective vocal and textile arts traditions.
KRISTINE BARRETT is an American artist, composer, and vocalist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. After completing a double BFA in Studio Art and Art History from the Kansas City Art Institute, Barrett went on to study music composition with the legendary Fred Frith at Mills College, where she received an MFA in Electronic Music Composition and Recording Media in 2006. A storyteller at heart, Barrett’s work has been performed, exhibited, and featured in various galleries and media festivals throughout North America and Europe, and was recently featured on the NPR show The Thistle and Shamrock. In addition to her solo work, Kristine has performed professionally with several renowned musicians and ensembles, including the acclaimed Kitka Women’s Vocal Ensemble, Svetlana Spajić, and Trio Kavkasia, among many others. She currently directs several community choirs throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, including the Temple of Light Georgian Community Choir, Headlands Community Folk Ensemble, and Sound Orchard’s West Marin Choir. An avid hiker, bibliophile, lover of ancient literature and art; Kristine loves being in the non-human world, wooden boats, needlework, and sailing schooners. She currently resides on a houseboat with a myriad of plants, shrines, and animals with her husband in Sausalito, California.
Banner photograph by Kristine Barrett