YC FESTIVAL: SISTER SONGS
A sonic detour from the gender orientations of our listening
20:30
Teaterøen
THE WORK
The voice is among the dominant signifiers of gender, conveying sonic cues to listeners about sex assignment. Our ears are (mis)guided towards the gender binary based on repeated performances of binary voices.
But what lives in the gaps of our listening?
SISTER SONGS fabulates an intimate siblinghood between the body's sexed dispositions and the exercise of a transfeminine voice. To produce sound, the vocal cords vibrate with air passing, finding support in the pelvic floor. Such relation between the pelvis and voice production is research on both shame and pleasure, agency and joy.
As sonic choreography, SISTER SONGS proposes a detour from the orientations of our listening in order to breathe free from the gender binary.
the artists
The collaboration behind SISTER SONGS began as part of alex blum’s graduation trajectory at the School of New Dance Development (SNDO) in Amsterdam. The choreography took shape upon collaborating with Katrine Grarup Elbo, who as a violinist and composer complemented the soundscape, and, more importantly, as sister and life witness rooted alex in their sonic research on gender nonbinary listening.
YC FESTIVAL
YC FESTIVAL 2023 was the last edition of HAUT’s biennial festivals, and took place at Teaterøen, Copenhagen. The festival was conceptualised and co-curated by the artists Lydia Ö. Diakité, Vala T. Foltyn and Jari Malta. Together, we discussed the term cultivation and its readings, such as acts of caring, of nurturing, and of fertilizing.