2020 started out great. We hosted a couple of sold-out shows in the early months of the year, featuring Polaris Prize winner Backxwash, WHOOP-Szo, Zoon, and Hua Li. The See/Hear series at City Hall that we co-created with the City of Ottawa, Ottawa Dance Directive, and the Digital Arts Resource Centre (then known as SAW Video) had just kicked off with a launch event featuring music by Wellington Sanipe, projections by Pansee Atta, and choreography and performance by Yvonne Coutts and Compagnie ODD. And we were preparing for anticipated performances by Mdou Moctar, Teke Teke, Yamantaka//Sonic Titan, Jessica Moss, 13 Million Year Old Ghost, and Anamai in what was on track to be our biggest year yet.
And then the pandemic hit.
It was really hard to see a whole season of upcoming events go up in smoke. And it continues to be challenging to not be able to do the thing we do the way we usually do it. Much of 2020 has been a period of mourning the indefinite hiatus on events, but it also pushed us to think hard about our mandate and purpose, and to focus on building capacity for the future.
This year, Debaser incorporated as a non-profit organization, recruited our first board of directors, and worked on developing important organizational policies. We have been focused on putting in strong foundations to build on in 2021 and beyond as we begin to reemerge from social isolation.
We did do some programming during the pandemic, though. On November 27 Debaser released Mood Ring Vol 2, an interactive mixtape and web project unlike anything we have ever done before, featuring music by SlowPitchSound, Bucko Art Machine, Deidre, Mas Aya, Century Egg, Klapshmock!, Orchidae, and Melody McKiver & Thomas Goguelin. We also worked with the Knot Project Space to curate a sound works series for their online symposium A graph, a lovely tree. Both of these web-based programs pushed us to think about how we could re-think music presentation in digital spaces, and created really special moments that helped us feel reconnected.
We have also been planning a bigger project that has been in the works for over a year now and will finally be launching it in 2021. More on that in months to come. Plus, a special collab with one of our partners will see us working with a new-to-us presentation medium next year. We will keep the rest quiet for now, but stay tuned because we can’t wait to share more with you.
In the spirit of end-of-year reflections, we invite you to participate in our first annual audience poll! It’s the start of a new tradition that we hope you will join us in each year to share your feedback, suggestions, hopes and dreams for Debaser and our activities. Be candid and constructive - your responses will help us direct our energies towards things our community members want to see/hear/experience. We are all ears.
Thank you for being here. We hope to see you real soon.
A huge thank you to the Debaser board of directors:
Kathryn Patricia Cobbler
Anykrystel Coppet
Francella Fiallos
Emily McQuarrie
Anna Rickenbacher Mguni
Mika Posen
Candice-Crystal Rock
Rachel Weldon