- annais linares
My conversation with annais linares and Ben Finley, artists, researchers, sound makers, about their performance of Alchemizing Earthfullness a composition that explores self-rootedness, community connectedness and earth intimacy. The concert was as part of a Westben Chalk Talk Concert on November 9, 2024 on the traditional territory of the Michi Saagiig Anishinaabeg nation near what is now known as Campbellford, Ontario.This episode is bit unusual because you’ll hear excerpts from the concert combined with a post-concert conversation with annais and Ben about this composition and how it addresses issues of crisis and collapse, renewal and joy. Quite a bit of joy. A reminder that you can learn more about Green Dreamer’s alchemize program in e161 alchemize circle - a conversation with kamea chayne, of this podcast.
Show notes generated by Whisper Transcribe AI
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Story Preview
Imagine a world where music heals, communities connect, and the earth feels closer. Join annais linares and Ben Finley as they share their journey of creating “Alchemizing Earthfulness,” a performance born from a desire to reconnect and find joy amidst crisis.
Chapter Summary
00:00 Facing Reality and Finding Grounding
01:34 Introduction to Alchemizing Earthfulness
02:58 The Venue and the Event
04:00 Composing Alchemizing Earthfulness
07:02 Themes of Connection and Healing
10:16 Breathing Through Crisis
12:11 Musical Reflections and Cycles
Featured Quotes
Behind the Story
annais linares and Ben Finley, inspired by the Green Dreamer’s “alchemize” program, co-composed five thematic songs exploring self-rootedness, community, connectedness, and earth intimacy. Their performance at the Westben Schoolhouse aimed to offer a space for healing and regeneration, a “breath out” from the constant barrage of crisis news. The cyclical nature of their music, beginning and ending with a similar “scaling” motif, symbolized a composting process of renewal.
Note: This is an automated transcription that is provided for those who prefer to read this conversation and for documentation. It has been verified but is not 100% accurate (some names might not be quite right). Please contact me if you would like to quote from this transcript: claude@conscient.ca.
[00:00:00 - 00:01:33] annais linares
People maybe are used to being bombarded at this point with the news of what's happening. And that's the reality. And we need to face that. I think alongside that, we need to make moments of grounding, of rootedness and remembering our real belonging to this earth. Because without that, we don't quite have the energy. I think we're really zapped of that based from stress or from what we're hearing. It is oppressive to hear what's happening and to experience it for those of us who are experiencing that and have been. I guess for me, that's really what draws me to arts-based kin making is that we have to find ways to reconnect. And that's inevitably going to shift, in my opinion, how we then act in the world. And that kind of transformation is deeply important in times of crises.
(music)
[00:01:34 - 00:02:56] Claude Schryer
Episode 219. My conversation with annais linares and Ben Finley, artists, researchers, sound makers, about their performance of Alchemizing Earthfulness, a composition that explores self-rootedness, community connectedness and earth intimacy. The concert was part of a West Bend Chalk Talk concert on November 9, 2024 on the traditional territory of the Michi Saagiig Anishinaabeg Nation, near what is now known as Campbellford, Ontario. So this episode is a bit unusual because you'll hear excerpts from the concert combined with a post-concert conversation with annais and Ben, and they talk about the composition, but also how it addresses the theme of this season, crisis, collapse and renewal. And there's an emphasis on renewal and joy in this conversation as you'll hear a reminder that you can learn more about Green Dreamer's alchemize program in e161 alchemize circle - a conversation with kamea chayne of conscient.
[00:02:58 - 00:03:06] Claude Schryer
So I'm with annais and Ben, who I met at the alchemize course. And could one of you tell us where we are?
[00:03:07 - 00:03:25] Ben Finley
Yes, we are at the West Bend Schoolhouse, which is one of the venues of an arts organization called West Bend, and it's on Michisagi Land, close to the town called Campbellford, which is A small town of about 3,400 people.
[00:03:26 - 00:03:29] Claude Schryer
It sounds like a church, but it's actually an old schoolhouse.
[00:03:29 - 00:03:30] Ben Finley
Right? It's an old schoolhouse.
[00:03:30 - 00:03:31] annais linares
Yeah.
[00:03:31 - 00:03:35] Ben Finley
Yeah. So the bell still works and yeah, it's a cozy little space.
[00:03:59 - 00:04:03] Claude Schryer
And what's the event? We just. I just heard a bunch of us just heard.
[00:04:03 - 00:04:25] annais linares
Yeah, we just performed Alchemizing Earthfulness where we did a set of multiple original songs that were based around the alchemize program that Kamea Chayne and Green Dreamer put together and essentially talked through some of our own dissertation work and the alchemize offerings with the themes that were shared at that time.
[00:04:29 - 00:04:53] Concert Host
Aren't you just leaning forward? I wonder what the heck that. So anyway, we're so pumped about this. Our two guest artists today are really wonderful, wonderful people, dear friends family of West Bend here annais linares is a vocalist, musician and social practice artist studying arts based kin making everybody see that.
[00:04:53 - 00:04:58] Claude Schryer and all
Arts based kin making.
[00:04:59 - 00:05:26] Concert host
Anyway, Ben Finley at the age of 14 and I remember it, at the age of 14, Ben Finley plucked his first bass string. Everything changed immediately. Things fell still without worry in a playful possibility. Miraculously, that feeling remains. Ben Finley is a collaborative and solo performer, composer, singer, improviser and writer grounded in creative acoustic and electric bass playing.
[00:05:27 - 00:05:45] Ben Finley
Almost a year ago now, Amias and I had the privilege to take part in a program called alchemize. So alchemize was a multi month audio listening program hosted by a podcast that we really love called Green Dreamer. And if you're into podcasts, highly recommend it. It's really awesome. It goes really deep and invites a range of speakers who are talking on the intersections of the ecological and social different crises and also proposing really beautiful imaginary possibilities. So I wanted to read to you the description of the Alchemize audio program that we undertook. So with 10 days, no, with 10 weeks of daily guided imagination, embodiment and multisensory prompts and practices led by 20 visionaries, dreamers and shapeshifters. This quietly experimental offering was created to enrich our dreaming habits for more life affirming possibilities. This is an invitation to deepen our self-rootedness, community, connectedness and earth intimacy. Expand our creativity through speculative fantasizing and alchemize so we may further embody the changes we wish to see. We welcome you to play and alchemize with us. So that's the description and I just wanted to pick up three things from that which was self-rootedness, community, connectedness and earth intimacy.
[00:06:58 - 00:07:01] Claude Schryer
And do you remember, can you recite off the five themes?
[00:07:02 - 00:07:11] annais linares
So into beingness, into porousness, into otherness, into belongingness and into earthfulness.
[00:07:11 - 00:08:02] Claude Schryer
And I'll refer listeners to episode 161, where we talked about that on the conscient podcast with Kamea and their colleagues in that cohort. So we have that in common, that we've done a course or a series of exercise, creative exercises to deepen our connection with everything. But I was very impressed by the music you made today, and I wonder for listeners, because the theme this year is this season is art and culture in times of crisis and collapse. And I didn't feel too much like we were in a crisis or collapse, which is nice. We're in a nice, stable place. People love the concert. So first of all, tell me about the concert. Like, what is it? What about the music that you've created? A bit more detail about that and then how might it connect to healing or any other purpose?
(music)
[00:08:28 - 00:09:12] Ben Finley
Yeah, well, it's true we didn't quite talk about the crisis or collapse element of it, but it was definitely a sort of subtext that we were thinking about a lot when we were composing the work. So basically, annais and I co composed the five thematic songs to the themes Anis just said. And, yeah, it was just a beautiful process. I think it really just tried to integrate some of what we came up with through the Alchemize program. There was just so much bubbling through that program that I'm still integrating and digesting and sitting with. And so the music flowed pretty naturally, I would say, pretty quickly, because it just kind of needed a home to go to.
[00:09:24 - 00:09:28]
(music)
[00:09:52 - 00:11:10] annais linares
Yeah. And I also think that it speaks to the regeneration aspect of your work, Ben, because essentially you mentioned, Claude, that this work was a bit more of a healing kind of space as opposed to direct conversation about the crises and the collapse of many, many different things happening around us. And I think there are moments for this that need to happen in order for us as humans to feel rejuvenated, reconnected, re energized, to continue the good work that needs to happen. It's a sort of ebb flow. Breath in, breath out. And I think this was a nice breath out in some ways. So we didn't intentionally try to move in that direction. But I think as a personal call of mine, at least there is something about bringing people together and remembering who we are a little bit, and not. Not simply in ways that are going to energize us toward you know, working toward these issues, but also to sort of ground down. And I think that that's essentially what the show was able to, you know, feel like.
[00:11:12 - 00:11:13] Claude Schryer
I had a good time.
[00:11:13 - 00:11:14] Ben Finley
Oh, good.
[00:11:14 - 00:12:11] Claude Schryer
Which, you know, and I read a lot of dark stuff, and I know you understand the issues really well. So it was very uplifting to hear about connection, about feeling, about joy walking, especially the very end. I was telling annais that the very end, when there's that kind of scaling upwards is. So what about that end?
[00:12:11 - 00:12:42] Ben Finley
Yeah, that end was really fun. So that's how we began the whole show, too, with annais playing a similar kind of scaling kind of thing. And I think, like, you're right, it plays with our perception a little bit because it's going higher in musical terms, let's say. But it also. It's kind of like, for me, also peeling something or like, I don't know, opening some sort of. So it just kind of felt like a way to all be together through a movement of sorts.
[00:12:43 - 00:12:43] annais linares
Yeah.
[00:12:43 - 00:12:46] Ben Finley
I don't know if you have anything else.
[00:12:46 - 00:12:49] Claude Schryer
You plucked the bass for the first time in the whole show.
[00:12:49 - 00:12:49] Ben Finley
That's right.
[00:12:49 - 00:13:21] annais linares
Right at the very end. That was my big bang out. Yeah. I think the grounding of that is really interesting because, again, as Ben mentioned, it's sort of encircled the whole show. So we really felt that that was a moment that could return us almost cyclically from beginning to end to beginning in a composting way, or, you know, that reminder that we start from wherever we start from and then we end there too, and it just keeps going. So I think that idea is very ground.
[00:13:31 - 00:14:59] Ben Finley
We've had some interesting conversations about mindsets, and mindsets change all the time, I think. But, like. Interesting. It's interesting. The comparison with hope and resolve, too. Like, resolve is also another beautiful. I think it kind of pushes past the should we be hopeful or not hopeful thing. It's kind of another offering in that scope of, like, well, here we are, you know, so. But I think there are so many shades of hope, which are interesting too. It also makes me think about, I guess going back to the individual isn't as powerful as we make it out to be. Sometimes I feel like some of the work that we like to do, I think, is, yeah, just engaging with place and just being outside. And sometimes that it's not necessarily we choose a disposition and, like, let's be a certain way for this tree or something that, like, just being there opens something in us, too. That and a lot of times there is such a empowerment or beautiful thing in that taking time that is just it felt. It feels almost more given than we put on ourselves as a disposition. But obviously there's different ways to go about that. But it just made me think about that too, how sometimes going through the connection, maybe the healing or the being together can open up what our experience is. It's not all of us to choose a disposition, maybe.