Nestled in the folds of the tongue (tongue as a muscle), within the resonance of a suspended vowel, and amidst the unhurried tone accompanying the glide over a word, sounds precede words — they precede the paternal system of meaning. These are not yet articulations of a ‘milktongue’ (tongue as language) (‘languelait,’ Hélène Cixous), but rather, they embody nourishment and sound anchored in the resonance of bodies — liquid reminiscences of refrains, vocal inflections, and echolalia of a spring language that echoes the unstable possibilities of the phoné.
Through a series of bodily exercises — involving breathing, resistance, vocal emission, and touch — we will explore the vocalic realm as a site of metamorphosis, a reinvention of language anchored in the unique and relational vibratory possibilities of the bodies within a speaking community.
Tuning the voice to the body, the mouth, and the breath, akin to playing a musical instrument, encompasses the emotional dimensions of word formation. The collective exploration yields phonemes, sounds, vocalizations, and words, transforming into raw material for crafting a choral, ephemeral, and fleeting sound poem — a realization wherein each individual becomes the receptive ear for the voice of the other.
Bibliography of Resonances
Cavarero, Adriana, For more than one voice : toward a philosophy of vocal expression, Stanford, Calif. : Stanford University Press, [2003] 2005.
Cavarero, Adriana, Tu che mi guardi, tu che mi racconti, Milan: Feltrinelli, 1997.
Cixous, Hélène, Entre l’écriture, Paris : Des femmes, 1986.
Irigaray, Luce, Ce sexe qui n’en est pas un, Paris : Éditions de Minuit 1977.
Kristeva, Julia, La révolution du langage poétique, Paris : Seuil, [1974] 2018.
Thompson, Marie, « Gossips, Sirens, Hi-Fi Wives: Feminizing the Threat of Noise » in M. Goddard, ed., Resonances: Noise and Contemporary Music, London: Bloomsbury, 2013.