This ember state

Commissioned and produced by Asia Society as part of the Creative Common Ground Initiative

PREMIERED April 14, 15, 16 & April 19, 21-22, 2018 at Asia Society, NYC

In This ember state I investigated the root of the human voice, of how the body generates sound.  I discovered tremendous knowledge and power in the pelvis and sexual organs—a connection to big water, a sense of the infinite beyond the limits of what we conceive to be “knowing.” Wound together with this elemental power is all that the body has been taught—social mores, and unarticulated histories transmitted through generations.  I wanted to touch this tangle of cosmic power and social history as known by the body. 

I used myth as a vehicle—the myth of Sati, the Hindu goddess who sets herself on fire in an act of self-sacrifice for what she believes is true, and for what she loves.  (As the myth was absorbed into society, Sati became the dutiful wife who self-immolated for her husband.)  Holding her calcified body, Shiva danced an earth-shaking dance of grief that ended only when the gods intervened, hurling a metal disk that cut Sati’s body up into pieces. The last piece to fall was her ashen vulva….

I used these very potent images, actions, and symbols as inspiration to create a work that traveled through the psychic landscape of this elemental power, and layers of its complex history, via the human voice. 

CREDITS

Concept, composition and performance by Samita Sinha

Co-direction and visual design by Dean Moss

Composition, performance and sound design by Cenk Ergun