Tremor

Description:

Tremor was a performance by Samita Sinha produced while in residence at Western Front. The materiality of the work comes from Sinha’s practice of decomposing, distilling, and transforming Indian vocal traditions through the body to emerge elemental sonic material—and a kind of language—that contains potentials to reconfigure the ground of being and relation, challenge what knowledge is, and open new forms of embodiment and collaboration. In Tremor, she voices in relationship to a live sonic environment conjured by composer Ash Fure, within a space designed by architect Sunil Bald, and is joined by performer Okwui Okpokwasili. Committed to the emergent, Tremor is the practice and performance of attuning to the raw material of vibration and unfolding possibilities that arise through encounter—with other beings, and with the material of sound itself.

Fure, Okpokwasili, and Sinha performed in the round while seated on the floor of the Grand Luxe Hall. Lighting design by James Proudfoot basked the space in modulating warm and cool tones that were diffused by a thin layer of haze. The forty-five-minute work opened with a solo vocalization by Sinha paired with ektara (one-stringed drone lute). As the improvisation unfolded, Okpokwasili responded to Sinha's intonation, leading to layers of sonic textures that built in volume and intensity as the performance progressed. Microphones attached to Sinha and Okpokwasili allowed Fure to mix and spatialize a combination of their acoustic and amplified vocals with pre-recorded audio across Western Front’s octophonic (8-channel) sound system. 

Following the performance at Western Front, an iteration of Tremor was toured to Danspace Project, New York City and was presented with a spatial design by architect Sunil Bald.

Presented with the support of the Government of Canada and the SOCAN Foundation, and with special thanks to Darrell Jones for his support as a thought partner to Sinha across the development of Tremor.