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“The Further Adventures of Parlando, Melisma, and the Cookie Master: a brief history of unique singing techniques”

Due to the exhibition “La Voix Humane” curator Mark Beasley  presented a listening-session and brief history  of vocalization and Extended Vocal Technique from female pioneers Patty Waters, Cathy Berberian and Joan La Barbara; Grindcore and the Death Growl to the current re-examination of voices as material in the work of Florian Hecker, Stine Motland and C. Spencer Yeh.

Mark Beasley is a curator and writer based in New York. He is currently curator at Performa, and programmed and commissioned a series of vocal concerts and artist’s projects for Performa 13. He recently organized a performance series in conduction with the retrospective exhibition of Mike Kelly at MoMa PS1, New York that included Michael Smith and Blowfly, X-TG and Kim Gordon and Jutta Koether. His recent curatorial projects with the Performa biennial include Florian Hecker’s C.D.- A Script for Synthesis, France Stark and Mark Leckey’s Put a Song in Your Think at Abrons Theater; Robert Ashley’s That Morning Thing at the Kichen; Mike Kelley’s Day is Done at Judson Church; Arto Lindsay’s Somewhere I Read, and the experimental music festival (co-curated with Mike Kelley) A Fantastic World Superimposed on Reality. His first LP with the group Big Legs will be released on Junior Aspirin Records in Spring 2014.