To Begin at the Beginning It’s the quiet ones you have to watch in The New Vocal Club, Benjamin A. Owen’s fusion of sound and vision that held court at Perth Theatre’s foyer for a week in November 2022. Drawn from five years experimenting with live soundtracking in care settings and with community groups, Owen’s fifty-three minute film was punctuated at its opening event by a live performance from the Vocal Chord well being choir. Further interactions with the film came from improvising musicians, double bass player Seth Bennett and pianist/composer Shiori Usui. Both Bennett and Usui appear in the film, as do many of Vocal Chord’s members. As words and music overlap in both the film and at the event, Owen tunes in on an array of criss-crossing stories that highlight the remarkable lives that made them. With the choir gathered around the piano beside a hand made banner that might have been created for a radical street theatre ensemble, the most striking juxtapo...
An archive of arts writing by Neil Cooper. Effete No Obstacle.