A full house gathered at The Greek Centre on Wednesday night, as artist Tina Stefanou delivered this year’s John Berger Annual Lecture to a packed audience.
The event attracted artists, art practitioners, academics, students and community members who came to experience Ways of Singing, Stefanou’s performative reimagining of John Berger’s Ways of Seeing through the embodied and insurgent capacities of vocality.
Stefanou’s performance explored vocality, phonophobia, the chorus and listening as social, cultural and environmental forces. resonance and listening as social, cultural and environmental forces.
Drawing on her multidisciplinary practice, she invited the audience to consider how voice moves between people, places, mediums, animals, and memory.
Jim Bossinakis, Chair of the Cultural Committee of the Greek Community of Melbourne, said, “Experiencing Tina’s reimagining of John Berger’s work through voice was extraordinary. The depth of attention in the room and the standing ovation spoke to how powerfully the performance resonated with the audience.”
Reflecting on the performance, Stefanou said, “It felt important to assert my energy as a researcher who thinks through the live voice, working with my struggles with words, but also to bring a chorus of improvisors into this space of discourse, beyond and through the spoken word.”
Speaking to the act of listening, she added, “The words can move beyond themselves moving in others, and you can make your own connections.”
Ways of Singing featured a live ensemble: Durè Dara (percussion), Lisa Salvo (voice), Tom Stewart-Toner (electric guitar and objects) and Callum G’Froerer (trumpet). Together, they created an improvised sonic environment that framed the lecture as a collective act of listening.
The response in the room was immediate, with the event concluding to a standing ovation.
