In Return

On the Sonic Intimacies and Public Affects of Song

What happens when one sings to oneself in another’s hearing? What is the voice for and what does the voice become? Through a sound performance that invokes gestures of improvisation, residual traces of vocal pedagogy, and the specific vibrations of psychic and cultural affect encoded in popular song, In Return enacts the sonic intimacies of singing – as a mode of rehearsal, retrieval, and re-membering – within a site of public performance to open an ambivalent and reciprocal space in between withdrawal and disclosure, service and art, self and other. A presentation will follow in which Anjeline will relate the roots and registers of the performance to insights gleaned from her two-months residency with SAVVY.

Anjeline de Dios who was born and based in Manila is a chant artist and cultural geographer working in the intersection of sound performance, decolonial humanities, and meditation training. Since 2015, she has participated in collaborative performance works, workshops, and residencies in the Philippines, Hong Kong, Germany, and Indonesia through her practice of improvised chants. Anjeline also publishes research on music, migration, and labor, and is the co-editor of The Elgar Handbook on the Geographies of Creativity (2020). She holds a PhD in Geography from the National University of Singapore (2015).