Anna Holveck’s project “Les cris” (The Cries) is based on the scream as a sound form. Screaming calls upon overwhelming and creative emotions such as joy and excitement or anger and pain, but can we detach it from its emotional charge to observe its musical qualities? Starting from the ambient hubbub in the classrooms, the artist works with the students on the creative potential of the sound of their voices as well as on listening to their environment. For the students, these workshops are an opportunity to work on orality, the sense of listening to themselves and to others and, through this, to explore the tools of voice and sound recording.

In this project, shouting is seen as a way of expressing oneself – literally to squeeze out – of activating one’s vocal cords through acoustic pressure that is imparted to the space. The students work on the positioning of the screaming voice, and its extension to the speaking or singing voice, to learn to scream without hurting themselves or others. From the newborn whose lungs are opening, to the spontaneity of reflex cries as well as the endless number of animal cries, the shouted sound is primary but it can also be elaborated. Once articulated, the cry becomes a syllable and then a word. How do you shout in writing? This allows students to explore what makes them want to shout. In contrast to this form of outburst, these workshops are also an opportunity to listen to the quality of the silence after this explosive sound. The scream has a social, political and artistic history. By going through it, the students will be able to question, for example, how do we teach children to shout? What does the cry of a single person or a group mean? This liberating, permissive and complex gesture is an opportunity to make spaces sound, to produce sound and to listen to it reverberate.

This research residency will lead to the production of a restitution with the pupils.