EXPERIMENTS IN TERROR # 10

THE CHAIR
(for choir, mime, and chair)

An audience member sits in a chair, saying nothing, surrounded by choir of 4 or more people. The choir begins to scream at the mime in Spanish. Saying the following text (in Spanish):

You have our chair.

Give us back our chair

We will take the chair.

We have taken the chair.

Each sentence is screamed ad libitum several times before moving on to the next. Any choir member may return to any previous sentence any time they wish. The length of the performance should be pre-determined by the choir (but not told to the mime). After the final sentence is screamed for the last time, a selected choir member should pull the chair out from under the mime, thus concluding the piece.

Each choir member should focus on vocal sounds that are gutteral, constantly changing in timbre register. They should feel free to “hang” on words or augment (or diminish) sentences at their own intuition.

gbf - Summer 2000