MOMSORI creates and presents performances using sound as a major material. Since their founding in 2008, they have explored diverse performances and spaces to actively experiment with all sounds including human voices. With these creative works, they have resonated with audiences. Without setting any limit for sound materials and resonation methods, their journey still goes on. Focusing on the basic power of human voices that could transcend social and psychological oppression, they share the healing power of voices with people not only through performances but also through voice therapy workshops.

Interview

Q.What is the “bodily sound” for the voice theater MOMSORI? And what is the“voice theater”?

KIM Jinyoung: A voice doesn’t just come from the throat.Although the vibration starts in the throat, the sound spreads all around the body to make different parts resonate. That is the “sound” we are talking about. So we are using the term “bodily sound” in an attempt to move our energy and interest, which is focused on the throat, to the entire body. From the body, we try to bring out unknown energy through sound vibration. Carefully observing the vibration that makes the body resonate, it becomes clear that the heart is always there. To express our willingness to use sounds making both the body and heart resonate, we added the word “MOM” which means “heart” in Korean. And we came up with the “voice theater” after looking for something that could explain what we do. Our work has been characterized by its unfamiliar and experimental form. So whenever someone asked us what we do, we used to answer,“We use voices. What we do is similar to the theater and it cannot be explained completely with music.” Our name seems to explain where we are headed.

KIM Jinyoung: Our interest is neither music nor the theater. We use sounds that are found on the border between musical and verbal elements. Rather than starting from a script or a story, I focus on creating something out of a certain material. I then tell stories of what I can imagine through direct contact with bodies, sounds and spaces and what stimulates me as I generate sounds. Each of our works has a different creative method but they are all based in improvisation. When I go to a certain space, I’m influenced by its colors, smell and altitude. And I’m also influenced by people who are in there and what state they are in. So we create something by accepting the surroundings, spaces, people and energy like animals and by beginning to improvise.This is also why we must rehearse in the very place where the performance will take place.

I believe that improvisation isn’t a technique but a “heart” to listen to each other’s sound and to harmonize with the sound. So the power of listening is important. When we listen to each other’s sound carefully to generate our own sound, the two sounds become one, float around together and expand. This is a sound experience where vibrations and wavelengths meet each other. We carry out sound improvisation while looking for a moment when a sound expands effortlessly. And the impulse of the body is also important. As I mentioned earlier, our sound is not only in our head but it is generated by making all parts of the body resonate. So we also move and use our bodies often during a performance.

KIM Jinyoung: Selection of a space is linked to daily experiences. Depending on what we experience and how we are inspired in dailylife, we choose a performance space. "Voice Caves in the City" was first created at Seoul Street Arts Creation Center. The place where the performance took place used to be an intake station. This is a very big place. The sounds I generate there climbedthe walls to make me expand. I was surprised to see that a human sound can expand that way. In that space, a sound expanded without any limit. Believing that such an experience would be necessary for all of us who become smaller every day, I began to create "Voice Caves in the City". On the other hand, "Breath of Lullaby" is different. I like to go camping and I often visit parks. One day, I was lying down in a pavilion inside a park. At thatt ime, I thought of the performance. I realized that our auditory sense becomes different when we are seated and when we are lying down in nature. When people are lying down on hammocks, they seem to become carefree and vulnerable like babies. In such a situation, their senses become more subtle and sensitive.Through this performance, we wanted the audience to sense sounds with such subtleness and vulnerability. So we decided to have them lie down on hammocks.

KIM Jinyoung: Our creation is based on improvisation but our performances are not completely improvised. We do have a certain theatrical direction to make the form and structure of a work. Nevertheless, if we emphasize the structure too much, the on-site aspect of improvisation disappears. In other words, a sound has a form but it doesn’t have any content. It is difficult to strike a balance between the two. At the stage of creation, we don’t highlight the structure. Rather than that, we focus more on making an optimum condition for approaching the structure and for making us want to generate sounds. We are still practicing that. We are studying how to ensure a sound’s improvisation, impulse and willingness while building a stable structure.

That is why the creators’ trust has a strong influence on our work. Our members have a great variety of characteristics. They have different sounds and capacities. When different people gather together to generate sounds, it is important to see how much they accept each other’s sound and if each of them can maintain their own color in harmony with others. Such consideration is more important than focusing on generating one’s own sound. We didn’t have such trust from the beginning. After taking some time to trust each other and to look forward to possibilities, everyone is now capable of generating their own sound. So I’m willing to try different mixtures with their sounds.

KIM Jinyoung: Right after founding the company, I was fascinated by things like narration, structure and concept. But I wanted to express them in a non-narrative, non-rational way. This performance skillfully transforms the essential and concrete materials of a jar (water, fire, air and earth) into abstract sounds. Each of these elements has its own sound improvisation. Such a series of improvisation describes how a woman gives birth to a baby. First, the woman drinks water from the jar. After that, she becomes showing and gives birth to a baby. With the child, she listens to the sounds of the jar again. I wanted to depict a woman’s life and the life cycle. Considering the percussionist joining the performance, it has a stronger musical element. On the other hand, it  is also theatrical in that it has a clear storyline.

KIM Jinyoung: "Voice Caves in the City" is a performance that takes the audience to an unreal place in a city to make them hear the sounds resonating in the space. We performed in several places where sounds resonate like in a primitive cave. We wanted to provide the audience with a sensitive experience through which they could feel certain primitive power. So the performance has many ritual elements. As for our previous performances at theaters, we used sound equipment. But since "Voice Caves in the City", we have mostly performed only with the resonation of our own voices. That  is because we came to think that we could make a space resonate so that it could replace the expansion of sounds through microphones and speakers. The audience of this performance first listens to sounds in an unreal space. In the middle of the performance, they move to a very real space to listen to daily sounds. At that point, they hear the sounds they have always heard with different senses. This is something like a time difference. The audience then come back to the cave and see the end of the performance by attending a sound rite together. We wanted to find an interesting point where an unexpected daily space becomes a place full of resonating sounds and ritual elements.

KIM Jinyoung: We find a lullaby attractive not because the song fills someone’s heart. Rather than that, what is important for us is how we listen to a lullaby and how a lullaby works. In addition to songs, other sounds (e.g. sounds of humming, reading a book and gently talking to each other) could also be lullabies. In your childhood, you are comforted by lullaby-like sounds made by those who take care of you. But once you become an adult, you need to take care of someone else rather than receiving their care. Then you no longer have an opportunity to listen to a lullaby comforting you, even though every adult has an inner child. We wanted to sing lullabies for such adults so that they could have an experience of being looked after like a child, through the sound of a lullaby. In this context, we created "Breath of Lullaby" where everyone lies down on a hammock to enjoy the sound of the lullaby, space and time. And after the outbreak of the global pandemic, we wanted to meet even one person watching our performance so we created "Your Own Lullaby" which invites only one person to each show. In addition, we are also running a program called "MyLullaby" as part of our voice therapy workshop. During this program for refugees, the participants brought and sang their own lullabies. For a lullaby, not its lyrics but its vibrations are important. We wanted to share sounds and vibrations that could touch people’s bodies and comfort their hearts.

KIM Jinyoung: Although their motif is the same (lullaby), the two works "My Own Lullaby" and "Breath of Lullaby" are completely different performances. What differentiates each of them is how we communicate with the audience and to which degree we involve them in the performance. In "My Own Lullaby", the performer talks to the person in a more familiar way. And the person also participates in the performance more actively. For example, we make a lullaby for the person together and sing it. The person’s breath, rhythm and energy influence us. We had to stage five shows a day so it was not an easy attempt for the performers. But while actually presenting the work, the performance was comparable to meditation. It isn’t an event that requires lots of energy. Rather than that, it feels closer to daily life.

KIM Jinyoung: Whether it is generated by a human or an object, a sound can express sentiments. The sound of flowing water and branches that are broken convey different sentiments, attractive aspects and images. So we actively explore sounds from objets. In the same vein, the wind is also important. Breath is a wind. Right now, this space also has winds. Breath and winds are connected. Rather than just making sounds, it feels more comfortable for me to find a feeling of a sound moving through the wind. So we use the wind as an important element.

KIM Jinyoung: A performance and a workshop are different but they influence each other. That is because there is a difference between watching what is intended by creators during a performance and generating your own sounds. I have taught sounds for along time so if I don’t provide workshops, I will feel that something is missing. I want to make use of the workshops to help people newly discover their own sounds and face other aspects of life through sounds. That is what differentiates a workshop from a performance. I want to share the ways and extensionality of sounds. It is not necessarily “therapy” healing something but it is close to untying a knot.

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*Photo Credit: ©Korea Theater Festival 2019(photo 1,2,3), ©MOMSORI(photo 4,5,6)