Public Recordings

12/27/2025

There's no thanks w/out you -

It’s almost hush time. And I’m thinking about this year of Public Recordings. Call it a hinge year. A year of big changes but also (in a manner that surprises no one so much was me) a return to form. 

11/05/2025

SHOW GONE, the third and last duet of the triptych that Ame Henderson + Matija Ferlin began 15 years ago. All snaps.

++ON TOUR++

Montreal: Agora de la Danse — Nov 5-7
Quebec City: La Rotonde — Nov 12,13

++CREDITS++

Choreography and Performance: Matija Ferlin, Ame Henderson
Dramaturgy: Goran Ferčec
Set design: Mauricio Ferlin
Lighting design: Dario Družeta
Costumes: Matija Ferlin, Desanka Jankovic
Artistic support: Diego Gil, Katie Ward
Subtitles: David Gagnon Walker
Communications: Evan Webber
Documentation:Noel Pendawa
Technical Department: Darah Miah

Production: Province and Ame Henderson; Co-production: Agora de la danse, Public Recordings; Creative residencies: Agora of Dance, Mediterranean Dance Center (Svetvinčenat, Croatia); Support: Canada Council for the Arts, City of P**a, Ministry of Culture and Communications from the Republic of Croatia

08/06/2025

The Chains and another - https://mailchi.mp/5deb1173d724/the-chains-and-another test time at Summerworks

05/01/2025

Announcing some news about the associate artist team for Public Recordings:

Hi Reader, This is Evan writing with a message about some changes for Public Recordings. In 2015, Public Recordings developed a model of collective leadership to reflect our increasingly co-created and multi-authored work. Almost a decade later, our associate artist model has generated an extraor...

01/31/2024

We are happy to announce that Playwrights' Workshop Montréal is hosting another edition of What's Collective? this winter. Participation is limited (but free!). Please see this open call—deadline is February 18th.

What's Collective? is an itinerant workshop about collective art practices that we have been sharing with folks since 2020. Each iteration stages an artistic exchange through which collective approaches to art making can be shared, examined, and renewed. The result is a gathering in which participants can more deeply consider their own artistic contexts, and develop new questions and ideas in response to the project’s title.

What’s Collective? is co-facilitated by Public Recordings associate artists. This one will be lead by Christopher Willes, Evan Webber and Brendan Jensen (with remote contributions from Bee Pallomina and Germaine Liu).

Over four sessions participants will explore systems and strategies borrowed from past Public Recordings projects and the personal practices of the facilitators, to uncover common issues of group work. The sessions will include physical practices, sound-making, listening, discussion, reading, writing, and reflection. The goal with What’s Collective? is to hold a space in which participants can reflect on past experiences of group work, better understand and articulate important aspects of collaborative and collective practices, and discover how we can work together better–inside and outside of art making.

We hope you can join us.

A workshop with Public Recordings (Toronto) exploring strategies for working collectively within the artistic practices. Application Deadline: Sunday, FEBRUARY 18TH, 2024 AT 11:59PM EST. If you have any questions regarding accessibility, or require assistance with this application, please contact ac...

06/29/2023

Resonance Gathering ships out tomorrow! The core of this publication is an exploration— in audio recordings, photography and writings— of a large group performance we co-produced with Christopher Willes between 2017-2019. And so today we want to share some beautiful footage from the performance process for the first time. We hope you enjoy it!

The project gathered nineteen interdisciplinary performers to collective reinterpret music by the avant-garde composer Pauline Oliveros in a series of public rehearsals, workshops, and site-specific concerts in Tkaronto—Toronto. Organized by artist Christopher Willes and the collective Public Recordings, the ensemble included artists from dance, theatre, music, and visual arts, all performing together as musicians. Written in response to the anxiety and political unrest of 1968 in America, the score they explored is entitled "To Valerie Solanas and Marilyn Monroe in Recognition of Their Desperation" (1970)—a work for sound and light that asks it's performers to decenter traditional musical skill in order to find new ways of listening deeply.

The project concluded with a final concert of Oliveros’s piece in Council Chambers Toronto City Hall, presented by The Music Gallery. The local political situation at the time had become unexpectedly tense: in the midst of an election the provincial conservative government redrew ward boundaries and reduced council membership almost in half. The context brought a new resonance to Oliveros’ score, which proposes a self-governing system for group music making. And so the performance took place between empty councillors’ desks, among the spectres of representational politics, in a room where debates and decisions about togetherness have tangible consequences.

Cover photo by Claire Harvie.

Documentation a large group performance project on the music of composer Pauline Oliveros (1932-2016) that occurred in Canada between 2017-2019. The project gathered…

05/15/2023

Happy springtime. There are many beautiful projects blooming. And we’re excited to tell you about something we’ve been helping to grow. 𝑅𝑒𝑠𝑜𝑛𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝐺𝑎𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔 is a new publication/LP record that Associate Artist Christopher Willes has devised, in collaboration with Jeremy McCormick (design), Claire Harvie (photography), IONE (poetry) and many others. The publication documents a performance project we co-produced with Christopher between 2017-19, which gathered 19 interdisciplinary artists to collectively reinterpret music by Pauline Oliveros.

𝑅𝑒𝑠𝑜𝑛𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝐺𝑎𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔 is published by Art Metropole. It ships out June 30th, and 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐩𝐫𝐞-𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐢𝐭 𝐧𝐨𝐰!

We’re so excited to share this news with you.

𝐂𝐫𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐭𝐬

Contributing Artists and Performers: Anne Bourne , Allison Cameron, Victoria Cheong, Ishan Davé , Prices Easy, Ellen Furey Furey, Thom Gill, Claire Harvie, Ame Henderson, IONE, Brendan Jensen, Germaine Liu, Jeremy McCormick, JL Simonson, Kate Nankervis, Pauline Oliveros, Bee Pallomina, Liz Peterson, Heather Saumer, Brian Solomon, Anni Spadafora, Evan Webber, and Christopher Willes. Recorded by Paul Hodge and J.L Simonson. Mix: Christopher Willes. Mastering: Brandon Hocura.

Created in partnership with The Music Gallery, Séance Centreand Happy like a flower. With support from Canada Council for the Arts | Conseil des arts du Canada, Ontario Arts Council - Conseil des arts de l'Ontario, and the Toronto Arts Council. Publicist: Riparian Acoustics . Special thanks to Akash Bansal (outreach) and Thomas Gill

2XLP and book on the music of Pauline Oliveros, published by Art Metropole, June 2023.

10/09/2022

Thank you to everyone who participated in our most recent editions of 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭❜𝐬 𝐂𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞? at Studio 303 in Montreal and Take Me Somewhere in Glasgow.

Using the framework of a co-facilitated workshop, 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭❜𝐬 𝐂𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞? stages a multi-day artistic exchange, through which collective approaches to art making can be shared, questioned, and renewed. Led by Public Recordings associate artists, each iteration of 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭❜𝐬 𝐂𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞? invites participants to explore systems and issues borrowed from past Public Recordings projects and the personal practices of the facilitators. The goal is to hold a space to reflect on past experiences of group work, and discover how we can work together better–inside and outside of art making.

We're looking to continue offering this research project / workshop. Please be in touch if you are interested in working with us to share it in your community!

What’s Collective? Was initiated by Liz Peterson, Christopher Willes and Evan Webber. Facilitators: Brendan Jensen, Germaine Liu, Bee Pallomina, Christopher Willes, Evan Webber, Liz Peterson. Print Design: Jeremy McCormick. Thank you to all our hosts, and to the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for supporting this project. Photos by Julia Bau and Christopher Willes.

07/27/2022

We're headed to Glasgow soon to share a new iteration of What's Collective? - a research project and workshop we do on the subject of collective practice. Check out this call for participants from our host Take Me Somewhere. We hope you can join us.

This iteration of the project is co-facilitated by Bee Pallomina, Brendan Jensen, Christopher Willes and Evan Webber. We're also going to share this project in Canada soon, so please stay tuned!

Take Me Somewhere are delighted to invite Toronto based performance company Public Recordings to deliver their 3 day workshop What’s Collective?, exploring strategies in collective working within organising & creative practise.

06/29/2021

Mark your calendars because The Toronto Dance Community Love-In is offering up yet another heartfelt and exciting Summer Love-In Festival this year! It's all happening online July 5 - 17, and the line up features many incredible artists that we admire. See you there.

02/17/2021

The open call for What’s Collective? Is now live. This online exchange is the The Toronto Dance Community Love-In's 4th iteration of Collective Practice Project.

The Love-In will invite six participants to join the process, prioritizing artists based in the GTA. This is a paid opportunity. The deadline is 9pm EST on March 1st, 2021.

Apply here: https://tolovein.com/open-call-whats-collective/

What’s Collective? offers a site to research ways and means of making that promote shared agency and authorship: a research space in which collective approaches to art making can be shared, examined, and renewed. Building on a reading of Jo Freeman’s 1970 text “The Tyranny of Structurelessness”, a reflection on her experiences in the US Women’s Movement, this online iteration of What’s Collective? will draw on the lived experience of participant artists and the five facilitators to explore common issues in group work. Participants will explore practical elements and systems borrowed from both individual and shared practices of the facilitator team, and consider how group processes can produce positive outcomes inside and outside of art.

Evan Webber, Christopher Willes, Brendan Jensen, Germaine Liu, and Bee Pallomina are currently in an online residency devising this new edition of the project. We look forward to sharing this process. And we also want to note that we will have further opperunities for folks to participate in this work in the near future.

video by Jeremy McCormick