listen just listen
In today’s crowded audio landscape where every voice competes for attention, finding your voice and standing out is a formidable task.
That’s where Andrea’s brilliance shines.
Andrea’s life revolves around listening awareness, sound activism, and audio production, including podcasting.
Her knowledge is wide and deep.
Her audio expertise extends to every aspect of the process, from concept to production to publishing.
It all begins with listening.
The more I listen, the more aware I am of myself in my surroundings – the more present in sound I am, the more depth of being I absorb.
Immersed in sound, our lives unfold: we tell ourselves our stories and the stories of others and this shapes who we are, how we are in conversation with each other and everything, how we live and how we let go.
I am on a mission
My aim is to bring listening richness back into audio production. This is at the heart of my work with audio, including podcasting. The richer the production elements, the richer the listener experience. And this matters.
In the crowded space of independently produced audio, production integrity matters.
The more sonically engaging, multi-modal, and listening-aware the audio content, the more the audience will engage. This distinguishes mediocre audio from stellar productions that listeners eagerly return to.
If we’re desensitized by low-quality audio, we risk losing connection. We’re not just missing out on better content – we’re making it harder to hear our planet, its creatures, and each other.
Andrea Dancer knows this.
With over two decades of sound study and hands-on experience, she unravels the intricacies of creating captivating listener experiences.
Andrea delivers audio excellence.
Andrea Dancer is an avid audio aficionado, consistently listening since she was a youngster tuning into Radio Luxembourg on one of many radios around her overseas home.
Mentored by Don Mowatt, Peabody Award winning radio documentary producer, Andrea began her career in audio production in the UBC Creative Writing Masters program.
She studied the coveted Radio Documentary Feature, a European form that uses many different audio elements to tell stories with the depth and complexity integral to lived experience.
Don Mowatt brought the Feature form to the CBC’s flagship program Ideas in the 1980’s, thereby defining the program’s style.
Fascinated by sound and listening, she also became involved in the sound art and ecology movement mentored by it’s pioneers, R. Murray Schafer and Hildegard Westerkamp, while earning her Doctorate degree in Sound Studies. She served as the long-time Chair of the Canadian Association for Sound Ecology.
Dr. Dancer has produced in many forms for radio, podcasts and sound art in Canada, the US and Europe over 20+ years.
She continues to listen deeply, produce passionately, and pass along her knowledge to whoever else wants to listen.
Playing Indians* is a radio documentary-feature about the German obsession with idealized North American Plains First Nations. It was produced, written, and narrated by Andrea Dancer for the program Ideas at the Canadian Broadcast Corp. (CBC). It is in the style of the radio documentary-feature originating with Peter Leonhardt Braun, who formed and lead the largest documentary production house in the world, Sender Freies Berlin (SFB), from 1974 through 1994. The feature form, that wove rado documentary elements with sound sculptures with interviews and narration, was brought to Ideas by Don Mowatt who, from 1964 to 1997, produced over 500 full-length documentary-features and plays, and interviewed dozens of major figures. He was also the principal western contributing producer to the Ideas series from 1982 to 1997. He was Andrea’s teacher and mentor until his retirement in 2005.
*The misnomer “Indians” is an offensive term used by settlers to oppress First Nations and take their land. It is being used here in context and ironically.
Dystopia is a podcast (in a series) produced for the Sunshine Coast Arts Centre as Andrea’s contribution to her community. It profiles Maurice Spira, an international artist and local character, well-known for his prophetic works that comment on the evolving military-industrial complex and visualizes a dystopic future. At the time of the interview, Maurice foretold the current reality.
Donna May Balma was an iconoclastic artist living on the Sunshine Coast, BC. When she opted for assisted suicide and held a going away party, the earth under many feet trembled. This podcast, commissioned by the local Arts Centre, pays homage to Balma. Nadina Tand, Balma protegé, speaks about her mentor whose eccentricity and art stirred everyone.
Where is the AI revolution taking us? How aware are we, as humankind of outcomes outside of market forces? Can the ancient past tell us anything? In a dramatization of the ancient Greek Talos myth, the very first droid, Andrea Dancer considers the human preoccupation with creating artificial humans and what that reliance might signify in the current AI revolution.
Homalco carver Derek Georgeson, mentored by cousins Bill and Darren Blaney, comes from a lineage of carvers. His Squamish grandfather, Albert, shared traditional canoe carvings throughout the Salish Sea, Canada’s southern west coast. Derek and Andrea conversed at the Texem-ay (Red Cedar) exhibition (SCAC) while he carved a totem pole – a legacy podcast
UnF*ch Your Marketing is a podcast series developed by Data Driven Rebel. Without audio experience, Chrissie and Eliya teamed up with Andrea for expert advice. She provided goal setting, scripting, recording, equipment, speech, and brand music advice as well as precise audio editing. Their podcast series was effectively marketed as part of a subscription.
Marking the 50thanniversary of the decriminalization of homosexuality in Canada and the Stonewall Riots in NYC, seen as the birth of the gay rights movement, All That We Are contemplates identity, community, and the the power of creative expression to draw strength from adversity. This podcast dives into each artist’s concerns and paths to their identity and artwork.
Walking Sound is a sound composition that traces walking paths from dawn to dusk and through iconic soundscapes in Prague. It is a collaboration between Andrea and Michael Kindernay and was commissioned by the Czech state radio program Radio AcoUstiCa and the EBU. It is recordings of the soundscape with some interventions, such as Kate Atkinson’s accordion playing on the Vltava river bus.
This poetic soundscape composition aired on CBC’s Living Out Loud program, was performed at the Deep Wireless Festival in Toronto (spoken word and spatialized audio), and as a gallery installation in Prague. It’s a musing on how living in two places caused the banks of the Vltava River and coastal BC to mimic each other… in Andrea’s belonging-longing expat mind.
In a suburb of Prague, there is a mysterious brick 17th century industrial building with miles and miles of underground tunnels used by arts collectives for festivals and shows. It is an old sewerage from when waste was filtered into soil and barged out to farms. Some colleagues made a daring expedition into the tunnels to listen to Andrea’s sound installation. This is what happened.
Andrea’s depth of study and experience will inspire your listeners.
Offering a fresh perspective, Andrea unpacks how to elevate listener experiences.
Andrea speaks authoritatively on sound ecology and audio production linkage.
She champions audio soundscapes filled with enriched content and deeper understandings of audio media.
Your listeners take away valuable insights, practical tips, and a new appreciation of audio and podcasting.
Hosts and listeners engage.
The simple skills every audio producer needs, but doesn’t know it.
The power of sound and story to engage listening Audiences.
The really Really essential audio production knowledge.
The state of audio industries and how they’re evolving.
The easy art of field recording and audio editing.
What constitutes oral storytelling in audio?
How to hone listening techniques and begin a listening practice.
Podfade as listening fatique and how to fix it.
Founder of Audiocene and Voice Vault.
Providing service to the audio Industries.
MFA in Radio Documentary-Feature and Ph.D. in Sound Studies.
Mentored by radio and sound studies pioneers.
Freelance Producer for the CBC, NPR, EBU.
Professional Podcaster.
Established International Sound Composer and Artist.
Audio Educator and Consultant.
Sound ecologist and Activist.
