CorpOrale [2020]
performance
Concept: Federica DauriBody & Voice: Federica Dauri
Sound installation, sound design: Elisa Batti
CorpOrale is a performance and sound research project conceived by Federica Dauri in collaboration with sound artist Elisa Batti, investigating the body as both a physical and acoustic organism. Initiated during a residency at ICK Amsterdam in 2019, the work premiered at Xavier Laboulbenne Gallery in Berlin and was further developed at ICK in 2020. In 2021, it was presented at Elbphilharmonie Hamburg as part of Immaterielle Kunst.
Drawing in part on Rudolf Steiner’s research into Eurythmy, CorpOrale explores the sonic dimension already contained within the body. Voice, breath, heartbeat, bodily percussion, vibrations of the throat, and sounds produced inside the mouth and abdomen become the material of the composition. Sounds that usually remain internal, intimate, or barely perceptible are brought to the surface and made audible.
A system of contact microphones placed on the body and floor, suspended condenser microphones, and piezoelectric transducers positioned around the vocal cords captures different layers of this internal acoustic landscape. The sounds are amplified, spatialised, and manipulated in real time, allowing technology to function not as an external addition to the body, but as a way of listening more deeply into it.
Conceived as a visual and physical concert, the work shifts the idea of the concert away from an external musical instrument and towards the body itself. Its internal rhythms, vibrations, movements, and physiological processes become both choreography and musical material.
CorpOrale is a journey into the sonic and carnal depths of the body, a body that is listened to from within, until its most intimate physical processes become music.