Selected recent projects related to workshop program
A Line Becomes A Circle, a Shomyo-Noh chamber opera featuring a libretto with Haiku fragments (2016)
(excerpt)
Vagina Dialogues, a vagina listening performance (2017)
In Vagina Dialogues — a new performance sound composition — Miya Masaoka enacts the registers of aurality, hearing and engagement that involve the giving and receiving of sound. In these vaginal listening sessions, the body’s vaginal orifice is placed against a resonant surface, whereby sound is transmitted and felt through the entire body. Internal microphones reveal small sounds. A group of self identified women sit in chairs in a semi circle. Each metal chair is wired to a transducer exciter, thus the chair is transformed into an audio speaker. A discreet audio signal is sent to each chair, which then vibrates and if felt by the vagina of the person sitting on the chair. Each person sitting in the chair experiences a different sound and listens to the sounds not just with their ears, but their whole body. Additionally, each chair is being sent a discreet audio signal, different from the other chairs, and each person can control the intensity of the vibration themselves with a control knob.
