Deep Wireless: where the POWER resides

Opening the inaugural Radio Theatre presentation, Trevor Wishart was quick to clarify that his interest in vocal work resulted from a frustration with the limitations of technology – not, as one might expect, the other way around. Wishart’s American Triptych massaged the listener’s senses as his interpretation of the 20^th century’s most iconic voices traveled across the octaphonic sound field. Wishart’s performance possessed the emotional crests and troughs that one might expect from such tragicomic source material.

Micheline Roi’s pre-recorded piece, Silent Cecilia, was created for CBC Radio’s Out Front program. Roi’s voice emanated from the darkness, surrounding the audience with richly textured sound, made all the more compelling by the sense of urgency that fired it: “I am begging/begging her to answer, to witness/my…empty grinding at sound.” Gorgeous in its intensity, Silent Cecilia’s lyricism pulled the listener through its impressionistic and at times surreal storyline. Replacing the conventional narrative arc with an emotional one, the listener’s experience was guided by Roi’s evocation of image and memory.

Utilizing the voice to create a story, Gregory Whitehead’s The Power Play explored the power of “the lone voice in the night” that emanates from your radio. Anna Friz, the Fabulous Announcer, led her congregation – the audience – into the world of conjuring. Assisted by three mediums - Matthew, Idara the granola girl and Mike the dollar store owner (played by Richard Windeyer, Christine Duncan and Richard Lee respectively) - Fabulous drifted across the ether, catching various sonic spirits in her net.

Kathy Kennedy closed the evening with Sonic Choreographies, her multi-track pieces for 5.1 surround sound. Composed almost entirely of Kennedy’s voice and combining prerecorded material with live improvisation, Sonic Choreographies mesmerized the audience with moments of exquisite beauty that were, at various points, peppered with humor and sensuality. The first piece introduced the audience to the primal forces underlying vocal performance with an intermingling of howls and wails. The clearly female wails rose from under the howling and then descended as if to align their humanity with a more primal force. Breathe, inspired by a Deep Listening retreat led by Pauline Oliveros, exploited the musical possibilities of the human breath. Kennedy created some eerie effects by evoking images of thunder clouds and the sound of a whistling wind. Then, shifting gears, she ended with a playful sound collage representing last Sunday’s Power Up session. The collage opened with the sound of shoes scraping the sidewalk before moving on to a variety of reactions to HMMM. Ranging from the observation that it “sounds like they’re in the stars” to the certainty that humming is “good for your physical health,” the reactions underlined the idea that humming is a “good way to prepare yourself to be a vocal [element] in the world.”

Each year, the Radio Theatre performances remind me of Forest Gump’s proverbial box of chocolates: while there is always one performance that just isn’t my thing, often the performance that follows it turns out to be more than I could have asked for and blows me away. One thing I can always count on, I’ve learned, is that I never leave the theatre disappointed.