Press Release
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Contact +47 4821 1508 for more details
DIAL-A-DIVA :: SATURDAY 8TH SEPTEMBER 2007
Connecting performers and audiences across the globe for 24hours
by telephone.
UK/ INTERNATIONAL :: +44 (0)145 255 2816
NORWAY FREEPHONE :: 800 193 72
ONLINE :: www.dialadiva.net
www.stavanger2008.com
VOCAL PERFORMERS from around the world
have signed up for a 24 hour arts extravaganza that's shaping up to be
one of this year's cultural highlights.
DIAL-A-DIVA is a project by Zoë Irvine. It will be hosted in Stavanger,
Norway and will be available worldwide. It is part of Stavanger2008 European
Cultural Capital celebrations.
DIAL-A-DIVA harks back to the period of the theatrophone. The theatrophone
was a broadcasting medium from the 1880s to 1920s. It connected opera houses
and theatres to audiences using the telephone network. This pre-dates radio
as the world’s first broadcasting medium.
DIAL-A-DIVA also connects an audience and performers by telephone,
but uses today’s telecommunications networks to span the globe. Each
artist’s performance is transmitted via their telephone into a conference
call. The audience can then dial in to listen to the phonecast. An internet
webcast will also be available.
The event will start in New Zealand at 8pm local time. We will follow
8pm around the world with artists participating throughout Australasia,
Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe and the Americas. It will culminate
24 hours later as 8pm crosses the dateline once more.
The DIAL-A-DIVA concept was developed by Zoë in 2004, with the help
of a Creative Scotland Award.
Call +44 (0) 1452 552 816 or listen to the webstream at www.dialadiva.net
on September 8th 2007 to hear performances from around the globe.
Those phoning up can expect an extraordinary array of talent including:
•
Singer/ songwriters in New Zealand.
•
Rock bands from all corners of Australia.
•
The Marionexxes from Malaysia are a band of bikers making music.
•
Karaoke singers in Seoul, Korea
•
Indian Raga.
•
The Anger Boys & The Ramallah underground from Palestine.
•
A pop group from Haifa.
•
Russian acts from Perm to Moscow to St Petersburg.
•
A carnival band, which has lost its circus from Poland.
•
Acapella electro from Wounded Knee in Berlin.
•
Austrian mountain yodelling.
•
A variety of Norwegian delights from the open mike 1⁄2 way
round the world celebration.
•
Traditional folk music from Burkina Faso.
•
Hip Hop from The Gambia.
•
Performance poetry from the Belfast Poet Group.
•
A favela singing group accompanying a bossa nova singer in Rio.
•
Argentinian Rock from an all girl band.
•
MCs and opera divas from Colombia.
•
Americana, rap, blue grass and much, much more from all over the
USA.
•
Folk and rock acts from Canada East to West.
•
... and the whole project will end with singing groups in Anchorage
and Honolulu.
Behind the scenes:
MYSPACE : www.myspace.com/dialadiva2007
BLOG : http://dialadiva.blogspot.com
EMAIL: dialadiva (at)
gmail.com
IMAGES: from
DIAL-A-DIVA 2005
IMAGES: the making of DIAL-A-DIVA 2005
IMAGES: historic Theatrophone imagery
The DIAL-A-DIVA team:
Zoë Irvine – project director
Cat Lee – lead researcher
Jill Lendrum – researcher
Zoe Heron – research and marketing assistant
Greg Hine – technology consultant
Robert Young – event team
Chris Marr – event team
Trond Mikkelson –Stavanger2008
Stein Bjelland - Numusic Festival
Aasmund – Numbusic Festival
Zoë Irvine – project director
Zoë Irvine, is a sound artist who lives and works in Edinburgh, Scotland.
She began to work with sound as an artistic medium in the late 90’s. Her
current work includes sound pieces, broadcasts, participatory projects and publications.
Irvine’s work ranges from carefully crafted individual pieces for gallery
spaces to the creation of platforms, inviting others to participate. Previous
work includes ‘Magnetic Migration Music’ (www.magneticmigration.net),
a found sound project which continues to hunt down fragments of audio cassette
tape to re-spool and sample. Irvine has exhibited widely internationally. She
is also Lecturer in Sound Art in the department of Media Arts and Imaging at
Duncan of Jordanstone in Dundee, Scotland.
DIAL-A-DIVA has been staged once previously at the CCA Gallery in Glasgow, Scotland
in 2005 thanks to a Creative Scotland Award in 2004.
Cathie-Anne Lee – lead researcher
Cathie-Anne is an artist, musician and environmentalist. Alongside her multidisciplinary
art practice, the music projects she is involved in include "Cathie-Anne", "Esperi" and "The
A Forest". She is also jointly co-ordinating "ReWilding Childhood" a
high profile media initiative investigating how children across Europe experience
wild nature (www.rewildingchildhood.co.uk). For DIAL-A-DIVA she has been working
ceaselessly to find talented performers from all over the world.
Jill Lendrum – researcher
Zoë’s mother Jill was a primary school teacher in Fife, Scotland until
she retired in 2005 and moved to France. She is a veteran of the first DIAL-A-DIVA
event in 2005 for which she honed her google research skills. This time round
Myspace has been a major tool and Jill has been corresponding with artists from
around the world on behalf of the project.
Greg Hine, technology consultant
Greg Hine was born in St Andrews and educated in England, Greg came back to Scotland
15 years ago on business and decided to stay. ‘The standard of living here
is so much better than where I was, and it allows me to indulge a passion for
cooking and hill walking’. Leaving College, Greg went to work for one of
the first ‘call centres’ in the country, some twenty years ago. With
a client list of large companies, he now spends more time using his knowledge
and experience by working with smaller companies, either sourcing services, or
providing solutions and encouraging growth. A member of the IBA, Greg lives in
Glasgow with his wife Brenda, and his two daughters Ariane and Sophie. Greg also
worked on the first DIAL-A-DIVA, this time with the enlargement of the project
he is in charge of webstreaming & webcams as well as the telecommunications.
DIAL-A-DIVA
is presented by Stavanger 2008 – www.stavanger2008.com
It is part of the Numusic Festival – www.numusic.no