The Pervasive Echo
Performance
2009

An opera singer was invited to perform a song by the 19th century singing sensation Jenny Lind, while under hypnosis. This was staged at Castle Clinton in Battery Park, New York, the site of Lind's first concert in America.

The piece references 2 prominent figures from the late 19th century: The Swedish Nightingale Jenny Lind as well as the fictional character Svengali (the latter was an invention of Victorian author George Du Maurier). The resulting performance is a response to Jenny Lind's inaugural tour of America, where her public image as a model of femininity was blown out of proportion as she generated huge mass popular appeal through the media. Lind must have been complicit, to a degree, in allowing the media to take over her public persona. I wanted to compare this process to that of undergoing hypnosis.

The Pervasive Echo was facillitated by the Museum for African Art for Performa 09. The performers were Kathleen Burger and John Healerchi