Opera is the centre-point for this performance by Ramona Nagabczyńska. In order to tell us about female voices, she reaches for opera – a performative arts form which has remained almost completely unchanged for centuries.
We tend to associate voices with the symbolic sphere; with meanings assigned to sounds. We forget that it is the manifestation of complex physical attributes. The voices which evade the symbolic order are moved beyond conventions: which does not mean that they do not exist – only that we have lost the ability to hear them. Traditional female song practices have found their dominant equivalent in the virtuoso operatic arias created by male opera composers. This is where the original voice ecstasy mixes with the refined propaganda of a harmful order.
The ancient Greek practice of aischyrology, based on the use of obscene language, emerged from feminine rituals. No contemporary equivalent of this practice exists – quite the opposite: vulgarisms and references to the abject side of the body are disturbing when they come from the mouths of women.
The political aspect of the human voice is defined not only by the meanings of the words which are uttered, but in equal terms by marking the physical presence of specific bodies.
