Performing Voice and Talking Machines

(4 Credits)

This vocal performance course explores the human voice as an expressive tool. Students will form the new Collaborative Arts Choir, our shared laboratory for experiments with interactive musical processes, choral composition, performance techniques and notational systems. Students will engage different theoretical frameworks and embodied practices through folk, experimental, classical, and popular traditions in music, theater, and the recording arts. As we sing, we will develop an expanded sense of listening that informs our artistic relationships with technology, learning to ask questions through the voice that open windows into cognition, agency, and identity. Each student's work will culminate in a composition, live performance instrument, or interactive work created for the Choir that will be showcased in a final live event open to the public. Performers of all (or no) singing backgrounds are encouraged to join and to bring their own practices into the class. Diversity of skill sets and interests will be the Choir's greatest asset.