photo: Bas Czerwinski
Hiccup
a dialogue between two gender-fluid voices (2020)
Hiccup is a composed spoken lecture and a hocket song for two bodies in dialogue. The lecture explores how sound is gendered in western ears and why we associate higher voices with weakness and lower voices with strength. The composed dialogue about frequencies, solfeggio scales, and sound waves finally tries to find a common ground tone that's exactly in the middle of their shared vocal range. From this ground tone, the two bodies sing a hocket song - a music piece where one melody is shared by two (or more) voices. When one voice sings, the other voice may rest.
photo: Bas Czerwinski
one low voice, one high voice
a lecture, a manifesto, a monologue for two
_________ a hiccup
(a hitch, a shock, a sudden interruption)
mouthing into a hocket (one melody shared by two voices)
_________ (a primal duet)
chanting to melt out of rusty gendered frames
singing a dialogue into stone
the first thing we get when searching 'female voice' on freesound.org is 'dying female'
the first thing we get when searching 'male voice' on freesound.org is 'male revenge voice'
we tried looking up 'non-binary' or 'gender neutral' voices - no results
credits
Concept, composition & performance Timo Tembuyser & Hélène Vrijdag (studio sibling) Outside eyes Barbara Raes, Melih Gençboyaci, Tanja Elstgeest Final direction Lisa Verbelen
Made in the residency Welcome to our Guest House (2019) at Productiehuis Theater Rotterdam