Living Art

Note: I am performing next month in a collaborative program with the art institute. It involves mixed media: music, drama, film, writing, art. These were some thoughts I had about the experience.

What is my role? To experience my own voice as an instrument. Stripped of words but not lacking any means of emotion or expression.

This collaborative process gives you the freedom to create your own experience. For the singers. For the musicians. For the artists. For the writers. And for the audience. Most of the music is without words- the voice is used in a very instrumental way. Since the music is without words, you are free to really listen and feel and make your own meaning. For me, once I've come come up with my own interpretation of the music, then it is combined with the other artists' interpretations through their own forms of expression: art, film, writing, acting. It's a collage at times but I've always liked collages with their layers of overlapping images, haphazard at moments, unsuspected meaning, individual and random but corporate without a mandatory dress code.

I am singing one piece which is a vocalise on the form of the habanera by Maurice Ravel. The title alone and the style of the music for a large part shape my own interpretation. I know the habanera is a spanish dance. I think sensual, seductive, smooth but sung by someone maybe a little rough around the edges. (This characterization is influenced heavily by my recollection of another famous Habanera sung by Carmen in George Bizet's opera Carmen.) But then when you see the film that it is paired with you realize that the music spoke to someone else in an entirely different way (based on their own experiences and life), and I think the full affect of these two unlikely pairs is yet to be revealed with each rehearsal and performance. It's a living changing organism when multiple artists are involved.

You know... there is also something about the combination of hearing and seeing something that we really connect with--- look at movies and the soundtrack that goes with them. Something happens when we experience a moment with sound (specifically music) and sight- it triggers something in our mind and emotion.

Spontaneity... which is not always a part of classical music. Classical music is an artform of rich history and reverence; it often comes with a certain sense of formality and convention. In this ArtSounds collaboration the music still retains its beauty and integrity, but through the partnership with other artistic forms a spontaneity exists which is liberating (and maybe a little uncomfortable at first!) It's definitely a fusion of drama (doing and experiencing) and art.

Maybe it's liberating too because I am a traditionalist and find security in convention even when it would be better for me to throw away my own inhibitions and just be goofy or childlike or downright bizzar. I'm too serious for my own good sometimes, and this collaboration allows me to step outside my own comfort level and just become a part of art fully alive.