Glitch Choir vocal variations,
A “glitch” describes a disturbance in the transmission of digital information, such as a distorted image or a stuttering video. It creates a rupture in the perception of reality. Can grief also be understood as a glitch in that sense?
The performance Glitch Choir translates the moment of digital disturbance into the analog space through voice and body in order to recompose a lament. Historically, public mourning practices were long carried out by so-called “Klageweiber.” These women were commissioned to give emotional expression to the grief of others for the deceased. At the same time, the act of lamentation became a vehicle through which their voices could be heard, that otherwise had little presence in the public sphere.
The performance draws on this tradition of public lamentation. From mouth to mouth, the performance unfolds an intimate space of multiresonance. Can grief, within this temporary community, become a collective glitch? What kind of choir emerges from the dissonance of frequencies?
Credits:
Concept, choreography : Deva Schubert
performance in Collaboration with: Chihiro Araki
Performanceers : Soroar Lear & local Choir Tbc
Dramaturgy: Lotta Beckers
Research: Jette Büchsenschütz
Styling: Magdalena Emmerig
Original costume: Ama Tomberli
Deva Schubert is a Berlin-based choreographer and dancer whose work centers on the exploration of the voice. Combining dance, installation, and digital media, her pieces have been presented internationally, including at Haus der Kunst Munich, Kunsthalle Zürich, and Sophiensäle Berlin. Her award-winning work Glitch Choir (ImPulsTanz Young Choreographers’ Award 2024) continues to tour in diverse formats and variations. In 2025, she presented her first solo exhibition, Silent Spills, at Kunstraum Niederösterreich in Vienna.
Chihiro Araki (she/her) is a performance artist based in Berlin. After training at The Tokyo Ballet School and earning BA from Rambert School in London, she has danced with Carte Blanche and Johannes Wieland Company, as well as for Alban Richard, Jenny Beyer, Helena Waldmann, Meg Stuart, Lina Gómez, Sergiu Matis, Jule Flierl, Ixchel Mendoza Hernández, Deva Schubert, Chiara Bartl-Salvi, Hanako Hayakawa and musical artist Pan Daijing.
Fotocredits : Spyros Rent
Glitch Choir – Workshop & Open Call
Open call for FLINTA singers/performers with voice experience
This workshop explores how collective voice and dissonance can open new ways of being together and make space for the unheard. Drawing on the performance practice of Glitch Choir, participants explore disruption and dissonance as creative tools for body and voice.
The workshop begins with a warm-up activating body and voice, before settling into its core: dissonant singing and the lamento song. Through practices such as overtone singing, yodeling, polyphonic dissonance, and the mouth as a resonance space, voice is approached as a physical, spatial, and collective phenomenon. How does the voice move the body, and how does the body shape the voice? How do shifts between harmony and dissonance affect the space we share?