Performing Brouhaha
Performing Brouhaha Choir at Kottbusser Tor, Berlin
Performing Brouhaha Choir
Sample score page
Download scorebook as PDF [1Mb]
2006
Performing Brouhaha [Kottbusser Tor] is an outdoor public performance comprised of a “choir” which recites a phonetic based text. The text is a collection of linguistic sounds transcribed by hand on site in the hub of the Kottbusser Tor subway station. The collection is then translated in the English phonetic alphabet (as a native English speaker, I subjectively “heard” in English), and printed as a score [Partitur] for the performers.
The choir assembled in a line in street clothing directly at the site at which the text was collected. Like a typical choir they have their scores in front of them. The performers were not trained singers, for they simply speak the text. The choir simultaneously performs the noise from the street back into public space, which informed its contents.
Biography
The contingency of normality is the focus of Reed’s artistic and textual practice. Normality can only be apprehended as a given reality through social consensus, and this consensus is inherently plastic, malleable. The play with the plasticity (potential) of the normal, both conceptually and materially, constitutes the foundation of her practice. Reed’s (often) obsessive works [...]