Jan Martens: VOICE NOISE

Glorious choreography illuminates the music of singular women composers, from The Raincoats to Tanya Tagaq, inspired by Anne Carson’s essay ‘The Gender of Sound’.

‘Redundant.’ Or more bluntly: ‘Irritating noise.’ This is how the voice of the woman has often been considered from ancient Greek times to today.

Voice Noise is inspired by Anne Carson’s essay ‘The Gender of Sound’ (1992), in which she exposes how patriarchal culture has sought to silence women by ideologically associating women’s sound with monstrosity, disorder and death.

In this piece some innovative, unknown or forgotten women’s voices from the past hundred years of music history are given a stage in the efforts to shape an alternative canon.

Six dancers respond to recordings in which the human voice can be heard in various guises: humming, soothing, shrieking, whispering, singing. Gradually, they discover their own voice.