Balfour: Four Directions

Part four of the 2022 Bridge of Dreams:

Drawn from our 2022 NAGAMO project, Andrew Balfour's 'Four Directions' is his arrangement of 'Te lucis ante terminum' by Tallis, with new words in Ojibway. The text goes through the Four Directions: West, North, East, South - and ends, in the place of Tallis' 'Amen', with the Ojibway word for "Sky" - Ishpiming. For this project, we commissioned Lil'wat artist Sydney Frances Pickering to create a visual representation of the piece. Pickering writes:

This video piece is a landscape interpretation of Andrew Balfour's "Four Directions". The footage includes scenes taken of the traditional territories of the Musqueam people and of Interior Salish Lil'wat and Secwepemc peoples over different seasons of the year. The movements of the land coincide with the pauses and changes in energy of the music. Over the course of the song, the scenes transition by overlapping movements of the wind and water propelling the viewer into different directions and locations.