The Black Sheep Utopia
About
When I Turn My Hearing Aid OFF - We hear my blood, my nervous system, and a thought of a frozen cello stroke. Bone - Treat the sample till you dig inside its bone. MRI Jazz - You know you want to jam with that machine. The Black Sheep Utopia - An omnibus about Gastarbeiter’s anxiety (from personal collection, not from the theatre play). These works were written and produced for various theatrical plays in the past four years, each dealing with wounding and pain, from sexual to medical abuse, to societal injustice and humiliation. Each piece of music technically exemplifies one of the facets of my compositional approach, which deals with space transposition through sound and musical whims. The question is whether these pieces, liberated from their theatrical context, could create temporary stand-alone spaces for holding the trauma. I picture sound and music as imaginary architecture, maximalist minimalism performed through broad strokes, equally positioned outwardly - in open spaces, in movement, in machines, in rooms; and inwardly - in the mouth, in thoughts, in blood vessels and nerves, in emotions and their constellations. This is urgent because we must make spaces to hold pain in whichever way possible. How does it hurt inside the head? The heart? The bones? How does it hurt from inside a story? What is the sound of our projections? Written and produced by Marija Balubdžić 2021 - 2024. All rights reserved.
