[Enlarge in New Window]

Pamela Z: Voci (Voices)

For Pamela Z, San Francisco-based composer/performer/audio artist, the human voice is not just a transmitter of ideas and feelings but is worthy of being investigated on its own. This fascination lies at the core of Voci (Voices), set to premiere in the spring of 2003 in San Francisco's ODC Performance Gallery. "Voci will be made up all sorts of segments; it will be all over the map," says the artist. "For instance, there will be segments that will present information on the vocal chords." Z aims to get the audience to think about the voice both as a subject in itself and as the object of cultural assumptions about certain accents. She recalls a story she once heard on the radio: "This guy had made a study of housing. And he had this wonderful ability to mimic all sorts of voices. He called several landlords three times regarding advertised rentals. First he used black vernacular English, then standard English, and finally a Latino-sounding voice." As you might imagine, the second voice received the most favorable reactions.

As in previous works, Z will use a MIDI Controller, the BodySynth?, which measures muscle activity, converting physical gestures into sound information--her limbs, as it were, becoming musical instruments. While Z has used it primarily to trigger sampled sounds, she also plans to use it to "allow me to change the processing on my live voice." The result is what West magazine once termed "highly organized cacophony" that is "intellectually satisfying and powerful." Z will be Voci's sole performer but she'll be using other sampled voices as well as film and video footage.

Voci's multilayered approach embodies Z's passion for exploration and seeing what emerges from that exploration. Although her works are often built around themes, "My work is not about getting a message across." She simply uses the subject as a launching point for making work. For example, in Gaijin (Japanese slang for "foreigner"), which premiered in 2001, Z and three Butoh dancers weave in and out of situations that look at "otherness" whether it be related to gender, ethnicity, or lifestyle. In an interview during her 1999 residency in Japan, she said she realized that "in Japan if you don't look Japanese, if you don't speak Japanese, you will always be a gaijin." The epiphany made her realize how "a person can feel like a gaijin on so many levels" regardless of where they live.

Z has performed essentially all her life, playing music as a child, then as an opera singer in college, and a singer/songwriter in clubs. In the early '80s she was drawn to experimental music. Dissatisfied with conventional aspects of the music-performance scene, she responded to the challenge of creating music outside the box and "even of combining contradictory strains and elements." It opened her up to a myriad of influences, notably John Cage--"his ideas more than his work, but also his work"--and the influences on him, from Dada to Duchamp. She also cites minimalist composers Philip Glass and Steve Reich, and art-school dropouts such as David Byrne, Laurie Anderson, and Brian Eno. "At the time, their works inspired me and gave me confidence to try new ideas." And she is greatly influenced by artists of other disciplines whose visual and installation works she sees in galleries and museums, and by "non-musical" sounds she hears all around her.

That sense of liberation, of finding ideas and inspiration in nontraditional venues, puts her squarely in the avant-garde tradition--a tradition she bolsters with her bel canto training. Indeed, Z's voice is a thing of polished beauty, not at all surprising since, as she puts it, "My main instrument has always been the voice. The human voice is completely malleable, with an astonishing dynamic range and, above all, infinite possibilities of timbre."

[ About this article ]

THIS PROJECT'S CATEGORIES: Performance > Music | African American Themes | Language, Linguistics, Literature & Books | California | 2002