As an antidote to theatrical performance, I hold space for audience participation and improvisation in events such as Found Object Choir.
As an antidote to theatrical performance, I hold space for audience participation and improvisation in events such as Found Object Choir.
Before the event, walk the grounds and gather evocative objects - objects that when they are seen, you can’t help but make a sound in response. Bring the objects next to a loudspeaker with an audio looping pedal and microphone. Put on brightly colored clothes and invite people to join. Present one of the objects, move with it, and make the sound of that moving object into the microphone. Use the looping pedal to record and play the sound back over the loudspeaker. Improvise with a second object, building the audio track by improvising a sound in response to the playing audio. Offer the third object to a person and, saying as little as possible, invite them to improvise sound and movement with it. Record their sound with the microphone, and add it to the looping audio playback. Continue as long as people want, or until you find you’ve run out of objects.
2022 Neill Prewitt
Documentation of Our Heart Beats, a participatory performance inspired by the video My Heart Beats. At Amos Eno Gallery, in Brooklyn NY, on December 21, 2018