Samita Sinha: Cipher

“Mesmerizing. This is fusion…in the best sense: she effortlessly, seamlessly weaves [sounds] yet keeps their distinct flavors intact.”—Time Out

Enter into a unique sonic and theatrical world drawn from composer and vocalist Samita Sinha’s North Indian musical roots. A staged performance work for solo voice and electronics, Cipher utilizes Sinha’s practice of “body-sound”—a way of singing that unites voice, physical gesture, language, and space into potent articulations that range from raw guttural bursts and speech to beautiful song. A first-generation American whose parents are immigrants from South Asia, Sinha asks through this ambitious project: is it possible to create a “native” tongue, a contemporary pidgin that gathers and refracts multiple languages, worldviews, and temporalities? Is it possible to create an idiom that acknowledges “the need for roots” while shaking off “the petrifications of the past”?

In Cipher Sinha explores these questions using the free-form sounds of tarana—a genre of song in Hindustani classical vocal music from the 13th century that mixes Persian, Arabic, and Sanskrit syllables said to encode mystical meanings. Channeling mythological goddesses from the Hindu and Buddhist pantheons, Sinha creates multilayered soundscapes with her vocalizations intermixed with loops and electronic samples of classical Indian instruments to evoke centuries-old traditions as well as today’s futuristic digital realms. Performed in a sculptural environment designed by collaborator Dani Leventhal (an assistant professor in Ohio State’s Department of Art), Cipher is a beguiling and otherworldly experience that will transport you.

Late seating for this performance is not permitted.

Cipher is a National Performance Network (NPN) Creation Fund Project co-commissioned by the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art in partnership with Center for the Arts at Virginia Tech; Wexner Center for the Arts, The Ohio State University; RedCat, Los Angeles; and NPN. For more information: npnweb.org.

This project is made possible in part by support from the National Endowment for the Arts and the NPN Performance Residency Program.