The knowledge of the body. Experiencing the space through creative listening, multipart singing and collective movements

Abstract

The article focuses on the music-making and discourses in a ‘widespread’ community of singers, coming from different places and social environments to perform Calabrian polyvocal songs under the guide of a singing master, and in the absence of an audience stricto sensu. In the past few years, these meetings have been deliberately held in Calabrian inland/depopulated areas and its evocative spaces. In these situations, multipart singing, collective moving, listening, and singing practices generate musical behaviours, strengthen, and validate significant relationships between all participants (mostly women) who gather to share daily experiences in short-term meetings. Blending the singing itself with a peculiar listening training, the singing master teaches how to explore the surroundings through ‘singing perambulations’. In this environment, participants find their ways to affirm their very own presence and self-determination. At the same time, they learn how to coordinate with the rest of the group through the motion, creating strong interactions between themselves and the space/place temporary inhabited, and embodying the songs they sing as well.