how to not sing

I was delighted to premier “How to Not Sing” as one of a trio of really excellent language artists & sonic performers (Emmanuelle Waeckerle / Nicola Woodham) at The National Poetry Library for a unique event celebrating "Reading & Sounding" curated by Iris Colomb.

This piece emerged organically out of my sonic improvisations. I grew up singing a lot, but as a teenager and with formal training I got more and more self-conscious of my vocal abilities. The classical singing world was pretty intimidating. So I put singing aside and it wasn't until I started working with Khaled Barghouthi (Reading Movement) playing with sounding the moving body that I rediscovered all the muscle memory that I had developed over my years of vocal training and began exploring this somatic capacity in a more playful, permissive way. I use these muscles to play with sound in my expanded language practice, but so often the memory of songs or trying to sing, of my voice being stopped or stuck, return.

"How to Not Sing" is a piece that celebrates the sounding body in all its awkward integrated and disintegrated glory. It is a work that sounds and moves and sighs through the discomfort and complexity of a human body becoming audible.