GOMA Gallery, Waterford. Performance: Thursday 17th May at 7pm. Installation will be open from the 17th May-19th May.
RHAPSODE in Goma Gallery, Waterford, is a live art performance weaving narratives and vocalisations with live art and installation. Karmel explores The voice as a medium in live art performance: An Exploration of Place and Memory from a Micro-Historical Perspective.
This installation is part of the artist/researcher’s MA research at the Dept. of Creative and Performing Arts, W.I.T. From the time of ancient civilization, humanity has used the voice as the main source of communication. Humans mimicked the audiology of their environment, vocalizing on commune with nature and their tribes. With the development of civilization came to the singing of the Gods, as in the praises, or dithyramb to the Greek God of theatre, Dionysus. In Ancient Greece it feel apon the Rhapsode to wander and perform art inspired by places and people they met on their travels. The term Rhapsode is derived from the Greek rhapsoidein, meaning to ‘sew songs’. Wearing a cloak and carrying a staff (a symbol of having something important to say), the rhapsode called the listeners to attention. In Ireland it was the Bards who sang praises to the high Kings and the wandering minstrel and storytellers who carried the news of the time.
The artist/researchers recent works explore place and memory. In the public event, When Silence Falls (2016) at the W.I.T. College Street Campus, An event which commemorated the Waterford Magdalene Laundry and Industrial School, the voice was a powerful medium. The artist/researcher created a live art piece entitled Selective Silences. The work was dedicated to: the babies of Ireland who had no voice; the children and women who were taken from their families and communities; and, the babies who were born in Holy grottos, or aborted and buried in the gardens and fields of Ireland. This performance piece reflected on memories from the artist’s lifetime, exploring a micro-historical approach to the work. Vocalisations consisted of a lullaby, which the artist’s mother used to sing to her sons entitled ‘Little Drummer Boy’, interspersed with non lexical vocables (non-sense words) and the traditional lullaby, ‘Toora Loora Loora’. Using a performance auto-ethnographic approach, the artist created a micro-historical vocalized live art performance in response to the theme of commemoration within which the personal narrative was layered.
GOMA, Gallery Of Modern Art, 6 Lombard Street, Waterford.
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