GEOHERITAGE AND THE ARTS: BUILDING AWARENESS USING THE KEWEENAW MINES

Unique music and dance within the mines of the Keweenaw has been a feature of geoheritage of recent years. The stope within dry upper levels of an underground mine at Delaware Michigan was the site of a concert by the Digital Music Ensemble of the University of Michigan led by composer/director Prof Stephen Rush.

A “Rock Music” event was done in the Hoist House of the Quincy Mine, an iconic historic building. This included newly composed music as well as music by Pauline Oliveros, including percussion using rocks and hoist equipment and modern dance, with Stephen Rush and Carrie Biolo from the Northern Michigan University Music Department, who also played on an icelophone made of Lake Superior ice blocks.

A live action virtual poetics project “SMOKEPENNY LYRICHORD HEAVENBRED” or past years /by contrast penetration / encroaching on the reserve used specially processed LIDAR imagery in the Quincy Mine Stopes and the Hoist as the animated backdrop for a performance surrounding copper's role as a conductor within sprawling networks of exploitation as well as illumination. The libretto draws on the baroque language of telegraph codes through which management and investors communicated about upheavals of the strike of 1913. The field work was led by poet/scholar Jennifer Scappettone from University of Chicago, and included multidisciplinary code artist Judd Morrissey, sound artist Mark Booth (Chicago Art Institute) and artist/technologist Abraham Avinisan of Kent State.

We have also recorded public old time radio performances of the Red Jacket Jamboree with geoheritage themes such as red hot lava with local musicians. This heard over Michigan Public Radio stations.

Other common arts events in the Keweenaw are combined field trips for artists and those interested in geology, called “reading the landscape”, typically. with about 20 participants who discuss landscapes from scientific and artistic perspectives and do outdoor art/geologic notes.

Our goal in this effort is to expand geoheritage awareness and build a community who will use our outstanding geosites. We will show photos and video of excerpts from these unique events at the meeting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ll0h8sEiD2Y

https://www.oikost.com/projects-2/smokepenny-lyrichord-heavenbred