Listen, Watch Mortal Mortar Made of Death from the Rosendale Edition of the Subliminal History of New York State.

On July 30, 2006, the Society held a Singing School Workshop and Performance/Assembly at the Widow Jane Mine in Rosendale, NY.

The day mixed instruction on how to sing shape note music with the first ever presentation of the Rosendale edition of the Subliminal History of New York State, a narrative about living land and history being developed by Carrie Dashow of the Society for a Subliminal State.

From 2-5 PM, participants attended a shape note singing school workshop. The workshop mixed instruction on how to sing shape note music, an early American singing style still in practice today, with stories communicated from the living land about Rosendale’s cement industry and the vast inland sea that covered much of the region in Cretaceous times.

At 6 PM the class performed with Carrie and Jesse and an audience of over fifty people. The performance featured storytelling, participatory visual and auditory exercises performed by the audience, and the singing of seven original shape note compositions.

The Society for a Subliminal State would like to thank Dietrich Werner and Gail Grunwald of the Century House Historical Society for generously hosting and helping us develop and promote this event.

Read our press release for the Rosendale event.