Symphony of Intimacies is part of a perpetual work-in-progress which started in early 2018 with the piece Bird Bird, Touch Touch, Sing Sing. For their presentation at Radialsystem in April, the duo have invited five non-professional performers to join them in a performance that navigates between interdependency, vulnerability, closeness, disorientation and trust. These themes will be explored as forms of collective resistance.
The piece is built around a site-specific, structure-sensitive, touch-based sonic architectural interface made especially for multiple performers by Nguyễn + Transitory.
The performers collectively transform sounds through touch, attempting to fuse the body with the instrument being played. The body not only touches the instrument, but becomes a conductor as well, generating a composition live and in real time and conducting the fluctuating electrical currents that are transmitted into a modular synthesizer.
This dynamic diffuses classical relationships, roles and hierarchies often present among director-composer-performer constellations and creates a situation that allows the complexities of collective agency to unfold. In this piece, touch becomes an essential tool of communication, a carrier and receiver of sound, and a tool through which agencies are renegotiated and the collective is sustained.