The Wing & String Collective

The Wing & String Collective is a collaborative performance ensemble whose current members include Nora Hutchinson, Jeff Bird, Peg Evans, Neal Evans, Sue Smith, and Tor Lukasik-Foss.  The Wing & String Collective is interested in the creation of new works hybridizing opera, traditional folk music, theatre, and performance art together.  Past works include:  In Safe Places (performed throughout Ontario between 1996 to 2003), If You Hate This Planet (1996 to 1997 ), Urban Hootenany (2007), The Soul of The Street (2011)
 

OdinHuginandMunin

There is a brief and cryptic passage in the Poetic Edda poem Grímnismál (one of the foundational works of Norse Mythology), that talks about a relationship between Odin, the allfather of Norse gods, and a pair of ravens, Hugin (a Norse word for ‘thought’) and Munin (‘mind’ or ‘memory’).  It translates as follows:

“Hugin and Munin fly each day

over the spacious earth.

I fear for Hugin, that he come not back,

yet more anxious am I for Munin.”
 

OdinHuginandMunin is an original cycle of songs and performances that explores the significance of this passage, particularly as an allegory for our current times:  who/what gathers information and monitors the activities of our world, and who/what synthesizes that knowledge?  Do we have a collective anxiety that thought (hugin) and memory (munin) are in a state of precariousness?  Are we experiencing the dawn of a new era of consciousness or unconsciousness?
 

Each musical set piece features some combination of double bass, violin, mandolin, percussion, and up to five voices, and utilizes a large shadow screen as the centerpiece of an otherwise minimal set.