The infinitely talented Diamanda Galás collaborated on the film Schrei 27 with Davide Pepe to premiere at the SPILL Festival of Performance scheduled in April.
Schrei is described by Galás as “the rape, torture, and other human experiment; the shriek of an animal which is repeatedly attacked within a confined space.”
The film’s raw subject matter deals with asylum institutionalization, and was originally commissioned by New American Radio and the Walker Arts Center in Minneapolis.
Fans of Ms. Galás know she is not a woman whose life and music encourage neat conclusions. Her determination to incorporate elements of theatre, literature, and visual art into her work ensures her artistic legacy is complex and unparalleled.
The 27 minute original is formed of several short performances that follow a patient (played by Galás) into a mental hospital after being arrested for treason and subjected to torture through chemical and mechanical manipulation of the brain, kept in confined space with periodically triggered bright light, heat, beatings and rape in order to extract a confession which is not given. Instead of the confession comes a 'holy' recrimination.
"The film presents a powerful unrelenting psychological and physiological portrait of trauma caused to enemies of the state in a "medical facility" where trained doctors deliver incremental changes of shock, light, heat and cold to their "patients" in confined spaces.
"The piece alternates extreme high-energy vocals with absolute silence, using the unique speech and voice style that Galás has been researching and developing for the last thirty years. Abstract utterances and silence meld with passages - including from the Book of Job and St. Thomas Aquinas - about transitions between life and death, salvation and condemnation, sanity and madness."
Schrei 27, initially featured in 2006 at the Switch On The Power: Noise and Musical Policies in Gran Canaria, Spain, joining groups of artists coming from the world of art and music who share performing and aesthetic strategies is available on the album Schrei X.
Track listing:
- Do Room
- I I
- M Dis I
- O.P.M.
- Headbox
- Cunt
- Hepar
- Vein
- M Dis II
- Smell
- Hee Shock Die
Comments
dear god i can't wait
She is a genious, I admire commitment as an artist
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