Recently I spent a week improvising with the clarinettist/performance artist Neyire Ashworth in our new music studio, The ARC, in North Norfolk. Neyire is experienced in performance practice and has worked with David Glass. I spent over ten years singing roles with Opera Factory, being inspired to take more and more risks under the directorship of David Freeman. Also I have in my bones the life-changing experience of working with John Cage on 'Aria' in Canada.
Together Neyire and I were ripe to imagine creating a work that features interactive installation and performance. For our starting point we chose the female pharaoh Hatshepsut. The audience will experience the intimacy of Hatshepsut's tomb through my compositional methodology of quilting with found materials, video installation, soundscapes and live improvisation. Our practice as musicians is grounded in the physical theatre of practitioners such as Pina Bausch and DV8. We want to literally get inside Hatshepsut's character and feel her bones. She is my Pharaoh plays on rhyming slang to mean She is my Hero. Although Hatshepsut was allowed to be a female pharaoh, she wasn't allowed to go to war. Instead we embark on her ceremonial journey to Punt where she gathered healing herbs and exotic animals.
Here is a five-minute video of a soundscape which I generated from our improvisations. We are looking for a première, will you be the one to book She is my Pharaoh?
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