IN SHORT ⟶ A performance that explores the mouth’s power to shape, destroy and revivify communication. Halfway between humour and darkness, a diverse range of vocal expressions brings to life perceptual illusions that blur the lines between the physiological, the perceived, and the imagined.
Choreographer and musician Stina Fors combines bawls, vociferations and ventriloquism to play with the body. Her performance A Mouthful of Tongues explores a lexicon of the mouth, a powerful channel to shape, distort, destroy and revivify communication. Her “theatre of the mouth” is made by a wide range of vocal gestures.
A Mouthful of Tongues evokes certain rituals typical of a divination practice that reads the shape of the sternum bone and markings on the area from the breast to the belly, also interpreted as voices coming from the chest. However, the performance is not exceedingly based on rituality as some magic shows that shift the origin of the voice elsewhere. A hostess on stage claims that she aims to entertain the audience. Her facial muscles remain still but we hear a voice. It’s the optical-acoustic illusion produced by ventriloquism, that in-and-out that makes visceral layers and surfaces vibrate.
Halfway between humour and darkness, perceptual tricks challenge the boundaries between the perceived and the imagined. Tickets hidden in the pockets prompt the next moves. A multi-lingual being is revealed, a measure of a disorganised corporeality.
Stina Fors will hold a workshop within the RECIPROCITY section entitled Guttural Voices and Other Sounding Bodies, exploring the voice’s potential as a means of expression.
Stina Fors is an Austrian choreographer and musician. She crafts distinctive performances infused with a flair for the absurd. Self-taught drummer and vocalist, Fors tours with her solo-punk-band; each performance is unique and spontaneous and has to be experienced live. Her work abounds in humour, visceral force, ventriloquy and high notes. She shares her knowledge and teaches how to do death growling without hurting one’s vocal cords. She studied Choreography at the SNDO in Amsterdam; she currently lives in Vienna.
choreography and performance Stina Fors
co-production Stina Fors, brut Wien
with the support of MA7
ph. Franzi Kreis
