as water sings the bone #1
June 13, 2024 at 8 p.m., Španski borci
Sometimes the crack of a jaw says more than a hundred scattered thoughts.
And then the day comes when, in a familiar space, you're greeted with a blank sheet of paper and a sharpened pencil—and asked why you sometimes choose silence. You're asked whether your voice ever hurts… You're asked questions for which you have no answers.
While you're wrestling with your restless thoughts, someone in the corner quietly sings, someone sits silently, flushed, someone taps their foot, and someone else embodies all that you've left unspoken. You're asked questions no one can answer. So someone dances the unsaid—and all your thousand-times-repeated same-old phrases.
Someone, instead of you, voices hidden and suppressed sighs, stutters your moans, and recites your worn-out lines of obedience.
An obedient jaw clenches you in silence. A tight neck and bitter smile are silence, too.
"and I will scream, all around will remain silent"
—Srečko Kosovel
First, I will say something. Then I will ask you something—but you won’t need to say a word… Then you’ll sit in silence for a while, listen, maybe write something down. In the meantime, I might sing. If possible, we’ll have a little talk afterward. And at the end, I’ll dance a little. If possible…
as water sings the bone #2
October 16, 2024 at 8 p.m., Španski borci
In the first Ventilator – as water sings the bone, the focus was on the internal, intimate perception of one’s own voice. Participants were asked questions about various aspects and ways of understanding, feeling, and listening to voice. They wrote their responses in a letter addressed primarily to themselves. After a short conversation, the author especially remembered the insight that there is a difference between the flow of inner voices and the flow of spoken voices that we manage to share with others.
In the second Ventilator, the author will continue the flow of research, using the written—and some even “drawn”—voices, as well as the unexpressed ones, which remain mostly “inaudible” on paper. She will explore listening and overhearing, heardness and obedience of the voice. She will continue and imagine further dialogue with the participants' letters, transforming silent writing into an audible bodily composition—between the heard and the unheard, the internal and the external, the self and the other.
as water sings the bone #3
December 18, 2024 at 8 p.m., Španski borci
How far does a voice travel? Can you hear it crossing from one end of the room to the other? What gets lost on its journey from mouth to ear? Is the proximity of voice too intense if you feel the warmth of breath on your skin? Is listening to a voice a tactile experience? Can a suppressed voice be felt? Can you see it in the body? Can you hear a voice in a wagging finger, a shrug of the shoulders, or an open palm? Mr. Sacks paused, then said: “to see the voice,” and began to write. Or rather: to dance.
as water sings the bone #3 is an externalized monologue about voice, its substance, and its forms of expression and presence in the interspace between the body that speaks and the body that listens.
Backstory:
In the first Ventilator – as water sings the bone, the focus was on the internal perception of one’s own voice. Participants received questions about different ways of understanding, feeling, and (actively) listening to the voice. They recorded their answers in a letter, primarily for themselves. After a brief discussion, the author especially remembered the insight about the distinction between internal voice flows and those that are spoken and shared. In the second Ventilator, the author continued the exploration through the participants’ written (and even drawn) and unexpressed voices—mostly “inaudible” ones—and investigated hearing and overhearing, the heard and obedient voice. She expanded and imagined an ongoing dialogue, transforming silent writing into an audible bodily composition—between what is heard and what is unheard.
In the third iteration, the contemplation of voice returns to the performer’s own embodiment, through a recorded dialogue of internal, momentary thoughts of both audience and performer—who is, above all, listening. Voice becomes a kind of measuring “unit” through which we observe the dimension of time.
