Claiming Our Voices: 

Laboratory for Transformation through Sound

Tuesdays evenings 6:30-8pm in January 7, 14, 21 & 28, 2020

Workshop lead by Esin Gunduz, PhD

During our reading and discussion group1, “Your Silence Will Not Protect You: The Writing of Audre Lorde", our conversation leader Gabrie'l Atchison asked which lines within the Audre Lorde's poem Coal stayed with the participants. Several of us in the group, all of whom were identified as female, brought up the following lines. All of us were pointing to our throats explaining how we "know” this feeling:

"(...)

Some words live in my throat

Breeding like adders. (...)” 2 

Indeed, the specialists of psychosomatic wellness state that, across the areas of the body, neck is the narrowest and therefore energy can easily become restricted there. Psychosomatically and energetically, the neck is associated with “doubting own ability or others’ abilities”. The throat is associated with our “perception of our value to others”, “expression and communication”, and the “imbalance between asking and receiving” in general, as well as “the sense of social responsibility”.3

Do our physical voices affect the tone of our inner voices? Don Ihde, talking about the phenomenon of “inner voice”, states how through constantly imagining with other people's voices we become “quasi-other”...4  

How much of (the behind-the-scenes) construction of our inner voice is shaped by burdens and various tensions related to our physical voices? How can we claim our inner voices and therefore our own ways of thinking and uttering? 

Join our workshops led by Esin Gunduz, PhD. 

We will:

_ relocate the voice from throat to the overall body and distribute any blocked energies,

_ join our forces together by humming, encourage each other to claim our inner voices and power of expression in order to promote social responsibility and change:

_read short selected reading to further our understanding of this topic, starting with re-reading Coal

  • In what ways becoming vocal in our bodies would encourage us to utter our inner voices / inner truth? 

  • How can becoming vocal in our bodies and humming together as one big body enable us to connect with each other and promote social change and responsibility?



We will be meeting every Tuesday evening during January 2020:

 

Jan 7 Tues., 6:30pm - 8:00pm, at Merriweather Library, 1324 Jefferson Ave, Buffalo, NY 14208

Jan 14 Tues., 6:30pm - 8:00pm, at Merriweather  Library, 1324 Jefferson Ave, Buffalo, NY 14208

Jan 21 Tues., 6:30pm - 8:00pm, 5 Loaves Farmhouse, 70 West Delavan Avenue, Buffalo, NY, 14213

Jan 28 Tues., 6:30pm - 8:00pm, 5 Loaves Farmhouse, 70 West Delavan Avenue, Buffalo, NY, 14213

 


About the facilitator:

For composer, vocalist, and improviser Esin Gunduz sound originates in the body. She explores life’s energies as visceral sensory experience and sound, building landscapes of her own recorded-voice samples to surround acoustical instrumental textures, creating breathtaking acoustic vistas. Ms. Gunduz has performed her works at the Banff Centre, on So Percussion’s “Brooklyn-Bound” Series, and at the Montreal Contemporary Music Lab. Among the performers who have championed her work are Ensemble Linea and mandolinist Avi Avital, as well as members of the Talea Ensemble and ICE, the International Contemporary Ensemble. A researcher of vocal performance, Esin Gunduz is an adjunct professor of voice at Villa Maria College and holds a PhD in music composition from SUNY University at Buffalo. — esingunduz.com, esingund@buffalo.edu

C.S.1 Curatorial Projects works to build community through commissioning and producing new work.  Dedicated to expanding the role of contemporary art, C.S.1 collaborates with a wide range of artists (visual, dance, music, word), individuals and institutions with a focus on participation, site-responsiveness, and experiential knowledge.  cs1projects.org

1 Facilitated by Gabrie'l Atchison, PhD; organized by Claire Schneider, C.S.1 Curatorial Projects, and Hallwalls of Buffalo, NY; funded by Humanities New York

2 Lorde, Audre. The Collected Poems of Audre Lorde. W.W. Norton & Company, 2017.

3 Barral, J. P. Understanding the Messages of Your Body: How to Interpret Physical and Emotional Signals to Achieve Optimal Health. North Atlantic, 2008.

4 Ihde, Don. Listening and Voice: Phenomenologies of Sound. State University of New York