Singing Voices from the Lab Inter Arts Salzburg in Divisive Times. Vocal Theatrical, Performative, Film-Documented Scenarios Lecture with Film Screenings in the frame of the “15th Internationale Stuttgarter Stimmtage: Phenomenon of Voice – Voice and Speaking in Times of Division”, 31th of October–02nd of November 2025, Stuttgart, Germany

9:30 Lecture with Film-Screenings
Conference Site: Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Stuttgart, Germany

Abstract

Times of crisis and exceptional situations, including the phenomena of division that are the focus of this conference, have been and continue to be the subject of far-reaching disputes on the cultural-historical timeline – in political scenarios, in the sciences and in the arts. Then as now: The problem was and is not the phenomenon of division itself, but rather the ways of dealing with the socio-political, ecclesiastical, and psycho-cultural backgrounds and substrates that lead to divisions.

Against this backdrop, this conference contribution focuses on vocal theatre projects by people who consciously enter into dialogical connections with threatening situations with and through their voices and bodies: Pro-vocations of a special kind – in ensemble, solo and duo form (film example 1). Some composer-vocal performers succeed in developing a new clarity and artistic agency for themselves in the process of vocal and body-orientated confrontation, for example when the protagonist in the composition and performance The Unanswered Question (Charles Ives/Lab Inter Arts) turns the “perennial question of existence” (Ives) intoned by a solo trumpeter into her own (life) question by singing (film example 2). Another instrumental and vocal performance (film example 3) mutates into a new compositional and aesthetic design after a long period of division and tension.

The fact that these vocal artistic conversions and transformations can open up a new perspective on socio-cultural and societal entanglements for those affected always remains a perspective of hope and desire in every real attempt.