Heli Keskikallio and the working group The Singing of the Sirens

A performance that brings forth the power of femininity, entangling human voices and dance.

The Singing of the Sirens is a song, a whisper, and a shout on behalf of silenced voices. It opens up an ambivalent landscape echoing with femininity, where whispering, singing, laughing, screaming, panting, humming, and wavy bodies create resonant, vibrating, tactile, spatial, and transforming soundscapes.

The performance is inspired by the Sirens, “the most dangerous vocal creatures that the West has ever imagined” according to the Italian philosopher Adriana Cavarero. The voice of the Sirens is culturally considered dangerous and surplus, due to the inherent danger in the power of its sensuousness. After Odysseus sailed past the Sirens safely with the power of reason in Homer’s Odyssey, the songs have been wounded.

The performance is underpinned in the history of silencing the feminine. The feminine is often pushed aside, and still silenced – or it silences itself because it has been taught to do so. This may relate to the muted history of those who identify themselves as women, but also to a broader landscape of feminine experience and being. Feminine energy and experience are everywhere. What if we take it seriously and give it space?

We want to start singing again and listening to it, and to bring back the sensuousness (and its danger) into this world. By listening to the songs of the sirens, we want to invite the audience to imagine with us a kind of utopia of unrestricted femininity.

Production Heli Keskikallio
Co-production: Live Art Society (Esitystaiteen seura)
Photo: © Giovanni Ambrosio/Black Spring Graphics Studio, black-spring-graphics.com
Supported by: Kone Foundation, Taike and the City of Helsinki
Residencies: Saari Residence, Old Mine Residency