Makeshift Cowboy Meets Improvised Beach
Klasika goes on an urban vandr
Written by Barbara Adler Brit Bachmann photos Brendan Yandt soundscape It feels like it happened a long time ago. A group of friends met in my office at SFU’s School for the Contemporary Arts, where I am currently a graduate student. We listened to field recordings I made last summer in the Czech Republic as […]
Call Me Black Wolf: a musical essay
David Newberry and Barbara Adler tell the story of Ernest Thompson Seton and the Natures Fakers Controversy, using music, fiction and the sweet voices of many wolves.
Article by David Newberry. Composition by Barbara Adler, with musical performances by James Meger and David Newberry. Story performed by David Newberry and Barbara Adler. Instruments recorded by James Meger at SlugBait Studios. I am writing this on a train that they call The Canadian. It is taking me and my suitcase from Vancouver, where […]
Welcome to the Johnny Horton Remix
In this installment of Klasika, Barbara Adler gives us a taste of some of the music she’s working on as part of her year-long, multidisciplinary art project inspired by Czech tramping.
In Klasika, Barbara uses the Czech fascination with the American Wild West to explore themes of adaptation, appropriation, fiction and thievery. As part of this work, The Johnny Horton Remix project takes these themes and makes them danceable. For Barbara and her musical collaborators, Ten Thousand Wolves, the remix is an opportunity for music to […]
Hey you, it’s me
Story and audio recording by Barbara Adler. Photographs by Jirka Matousek and Míša. After posting “My Cowbojsky Boty,” Barbara Adler returned to Czech Republic, cast as a character in Czech Country, a documentary about Czech tramping which is also the subject of her year-long, multidisciplinary art project Klasika. Her return to Canada’s west coast brings […]
My Cowbojsky Boty
Or, "How to Own it When You Don't Own It."
Writing by Barbara Adler Illustrations by Brit Bachmann Photography by Barbara Adler and Ash Tanasiychuk Videos by Ash Tanasiychuk “A cowboy without a horse just wants to get to where they’re going.” This summer, I picked up that piece of cowboy philosophy by wandering – horseless — through the Czech countryside in a pair of […]