Graveyard Shift: Circuit des Yeux and Faten Kanaan.

Graveyard Shift: Circuit des Yeux and Faten Kanaan

Pioneer Works' Graveyard Shift series returns in 2022 with special outdoor performances by Chicago-based experimental songwriter Circuit des Yeux and Brooklyn-based composer and producer Faten Kanaan at The Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, NY.

American cemeteries of the nineteenth century were akin to public parks and once saw visitors picnicking on the lawns, strolling down meandering paths, and socializing together as families. In the last century, however, these spaces have become more utilitarian in nature and lacking public engagement beyond funerals and grieving. Graveyard Shift proposes a new way of interacting with the space of the cemetery by activating it through sight, sound, and movement. This performance program features commissions taking place at and in collaboration with Brooklyn’s historic Green-Wood Cemetery, where the storied landscape and monuments are used as reference points for producing site-specific works.

About Circuit des Yeux:

Haley Fohr (b. Dec 16 1988) is a vocalist, composer and singer-songwriter based in Chicago, Illinois. Her musical endeavors focus around our human condition, and her 10-year career as Circuit des Yeux has grown into one of America’s most successful efforts to connect the personal to the universal.

She is most distinctly identified by her 4-octave voice and unique style of 12-string guitar. Her mysterious “Jackie Lynn” project landed her on the cover of Wire Magazine in August of 2016. Her recent works include an Original Soundtrack for Charles Bryant’s silent film SalomĂ© (1923), commissioned by Opera North, and a critically acclaimed 2017 album Reaching For Indigo, released on Drag City Records.

Circuit des Yeux’s first studio album since 2017, -io, is her first for Matador Records. The sky over -io is Florida’s strange, radiant orange. It’s a built environment, unnatural, made from concrete and glass, with skyscrapers that stretch to the vanishing point as you gaze up at them.

It’s crumbling and suffocating, a city perpetually on the brink of collapse, where tension never topples over into catharsis, where the heat never breaks.

Inside this world and its closed loop of time, Fohr found herself able to begin moving again. “I was haunted by memories in the pandemic,” she says. “As someone with PTSD, memories are all twisted up inside of me in a way that doesn’t help my higher self. Making this album was once again an exercise of trying to relieve myself of some of that darkness in a way that music has always done for me.”

About Faten Kanaan:

Brooklyn-based composer and producer Faten Kanaan layers cyclical patterns in her music, using harmony and counterpoint as narrative tools. Sound & silence become intuitive gestures that tell a wordless story and share metaphysical connections. Inspired by cinematic forms and literary story structures: from sweeping landscapes and quiet romances, to patterned tensions and dream sequences; she focuses on bringing an earthy, visceral touch to electronic music. In symbiosis with technology is an appreciation for the vulnerability of human limitations and nuances.

Recently signing to Fire Records, Faten’s follow up to 2018’s ‘Foxes’ is her fourth album ‘A Mythology of Circles’ (released Nov 2020) which explores the mythologies behind cyclical repetitions in nature and time.

About The Green-Wood Cemetery:

Founded in 1838 as one of America’s first rural cemeteries, The Green-Wood Cemetery soon developed an international reputation for its magnificent beauty and became the fashionable place to be buried. By 1860, it was attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors a year, a popularity helped inspire the creation of public parks, including New York City’s Central and Prospect Parks. Green-Wood’s diverse set of public programs include arts and cultural events, walking and trolley tours, workforce development programs in masonry restoration, a new range of Social Studies-aligned school programs, environmental justice workshops, an artist residency and much more. For more information, visit www.green-wood.com.

Please read this important information:

  • Doors and check-in open at 7:00 PM.
  • Arrive at the Cemetery’s main entrance at 500 25th Street, right on the corner or 5th Avenue.
  • The performance site is in front of the Green-Wood Chapel, which is a short (less than 5 minutes) walk from the main entrance where you are checking in. Green-Wood staff will be present to guide you to the performance location.
  • There is no onsite parking for cars or bikes.
  • If planning to purchase alcoholic beverages, attendees must show proof of age with a valid ID.
  • The bar onsite will sell beer, wine, and water. Drinks can be purchased with either cash or credit card. No outside food or alcohol is permitted.
  • Attendees are encouraged to bring blankets and lawn chairs, as the viewing area for the performance is mixed materials (including asphalt and grass).
  • No seating will be provided by the venue, unless requested in advance for special needs.
  • This is a historic site, please do not sit or lean on any of the monuments or gravestones.
  • Follow all health and safety protocols as directed by staff. Masks must be worn in restrooms, and are strongly encouraged in all other locations.
  • Feeling Sick? Stay home if you are feeling sick or running a temperature. Please use good judgment if you have recently been exposed to someone with COVID-19. For more information about COVID-19, please check the CDC website.
  • Follow us on Instagram at @pioneerworks for additional information and updates.


Presented in collaboration with The Green-Wood Cemetery.