Happiness is...

I was both intimidated and honored by the fact that I performed as Happiness is... on the same bill with some of my favourite musicians in the Ensemble SuperMusique and Kingdom Shore for the 12th edition of Tone Deaf, Kingston, Ontario's Festival of Adventurous Sound Performance.

My Happiness Is... project takes inspiration from the Jeffersonian principle of "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness," underscored by Hannah Arendt as happiness derived from participation in the public sphere. Happiness is... satisfies my desire for such participation through public performances in front of an audience as well as through dialogue with the source material I have selected for distortion and improvisation. Noise elements indicate my neurotic discontent with the status quo, yet register as a salvo of oppositional discourse in a performative dialectic inspired by the tradition of jazz.

For Tone Deaf 12, I highlighted the political dimension of my performance by taking as its source material Prime Minister Stephen Harper's performance of the Beatle's "With a Little Help from My Friends." Through music, political antagonism is shifted to the field of agonism or play.