Embodiment and the sonic worlds of Penelope’s underworld
Greenwood Theatre, King’s College London, 24-28 June 2024
Director and librettist: Jeanne Pansard-Besson
Composer and pianist: Cheryl Frances-Hoad
Lighting designer: Sofia Alexiadou
Videographer: Rocio Chacon
Choir director: Joe Fort
Penelope: Rozanna Madylus
Penelope’s shadow: Roza Herwig
Choir of King’s College London
First day of rehearsal, June 24, 2024
The research questions underpinning this workshop were as follows:
What are the lost acoustic worlds of ancient epic, and how do they relate to the acoustic worlds of modern novels and contemporary music?
In what ways can specific performance spaces and audiences, along with individual singers’ voices, bodies, and identities, foster new interpretations of ancient stories?
Second day of rehearsal, June 25, 2024
This workshop was designed to experiment with how acoustics and physical movements animate Penelope’s story, particularly through the medium of the chorus.
How can a performance space become an underworld that allows singers to explore their embodiment of a character? How do they demonstrate the physicality of their life lived – their dancing and singing as well as their labours and assaults? What does it sound like when these disembodied ghosts adopt the voices of those they remember from life, including their abusers? How can the lost sound worlds of ancient Greek epic or drama be translated into a twenty-first century afterlife? What is the impact of introducing lower or higher register voices, or fluidly gendered vocal presences?
Final performance, June 28, 2004