her harsh, high and deep voice: a polyphony
Lara Dâmaso is interested in the potential of the female* voice when used in an irrational, dissonant and uncontrolled way. The physical quality of the vocal apparatus becomes evident and palpable in her performances. Against the background of Anne Carson’s theories in The Gender of Sound, her practice is also intended as an intervention against patriarchal structures in which the female* voice continues to be conditioned to politeness and harmony, and its expressive revolutionary potential is suppressed. Amplified by four loudspeakers, her performance her harsh, high and deep voice: a polyphony transcends the normalised use of voice and fills the physical and emotional resonance space with vibrations caused by the interplay of voice and body movements. Lara Dâmaso records her voice live and edits it in a sound spectrum ranging from intimate tenderness to almost unbearable brutality. The superimposition creates a dissonant, free composition that permeates Otto Wagner’s Art Nouveau architecture of Alte Postsparkasse. Not only the singing and the dancing body become one, seeing and hearing also merge with each other in the abstract landscape of sound, in which vulnerability, hope and agency are renegotiated.
(b. 1996, Biel/Bienne) is an artist and performer based in Zurich and Milan. Body and voice are central mediums in her work, in which she explores their expressive, therapeutic and political potentials. After several years of intensive ballet and contemporary dance training, Lara Dâmaso studied at the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst in Leipzig and at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHDK), where she obtained a Bachelor of Fine Arts. Her work has been presented at various institutions and festivals, including Krone Couronne Biel, Istituto Svizzero Milano, Kunsthalle Bern, MASI Lugano, Kunsthaus Langenthal, Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève, Kunsthalle Zürich, Theater Neumarkt, Cabaret Voltaire, Plymouth Rock, Centre Pasquart. Lara Dâmaso is an associate artist at the Gessnerallee in Zurich and part of the curatorial board of the festival Les Urbaines in Lausanne.
Credits
Direction, performance, light Lara Dâmaso Costume Blanca Bianchi Sound Manuel Riegler Coproduction Les Urbaines Festival, Lausanne
Day tickets are available, including La peau entre les doigts.
No seating, the audience can move freely around the space.
Remaining tickets will be available at the evening box office. Waiting numbers will be given out from 30 minutes before showtime.