Permission to Speak

Permission to Speak is a 60min performative vocal work for four singers and multpile speakers. It is a theatre work set in the round, where the performers have memorised both gesture and notation, and use a multipicity of voice actuation.

Delicately poised between concert and theatre, Permission to Speak explores the dynamic relationship of parent and child as it exists and evolves through a lifetime. Marking the first collaboration between director Tamara Saulwick and composer Kate Neal the work pairs contemporary performance with musical composition to construct a revealing portrait of what is often left unspoken.

https://vimeo.com/199088969

Musings, diatribes, recollections and hindsight find voice as four performer–vocalists are fused in choral counterpoint with an assembly of pre-recorded voices, offering multiple perspectives on the contemporary experience of family. What would we say to those who brought us into the world? What will we say to those we leave behind?

Built from interviews with people of all ages, Permission to Speak interweaves the complexities, parallels and paradoxes of this most universal of relationships – manifested through the speaking, sounding, singing human voice.