Mishaps and Malaprops (an oral history)
2018, performance for six vocalists, 30 minutes
Mishaps and Malaprops (an oral history) is a performance work for multiple vocalists. Each performer listens through headphones to an audio track and mimics the sounds they hear using only their voices. The track, different for each performer, is composed from archival recordings of Fluxus performances and Happenings. These historical documents present a broad and curious spectrum of noises, from the concrete to the incidental to the absurd, that trace the efforts of these movements to interrupt the customs of performance and the propriety of art.
Performers move at intervals into different group configurations, in response to the sounds and the acoustics of the space. At the midpoint of the work, performers pick up powered megaphones that amplify their voices and allow them the both throw their voices further in space, as well as to record and loop their own voices live. Performers are encouraged to release themselves fully to the flow of sound moving through them: an acoustic flow that moves from the recording to their ears, to their voices, to the space around them. At the same time, they enter into a parallel historical flow that moves from the archive recording to the reflective moment of listening and into the constant becoming of performance, and arriving again at another recording.
Mishaps and Malaprops (an oral history) premiered at the Metropolitan Waterworks Museum in Boston on May 10th, 2018.