{"id":57851,"date":"2024-10-07T20:24:48","date_gmt":"2024-10-07T16:24:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/magpie.ae\/staging4\/?p=57851"},"modified":"2024-10-08T13:55:25","modified_gmt":"2024-10-08T09:55:25","slug":"sound-and-vision-odeya-nini-at-nyuad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/magpie.ae\/staging4\/sound-and-vision-odeya-nini-at-nyuad\/","title":{"rendered":"Sound and vision: Odeya Nini at NYUAD"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cToday I call myself an interdisciplinary artist\u201d, Odeya Nini told magpie. \u201cMy practice is one that is an experience of the aural, visual, mental and physical.\u201d She\u2019s bringing that experience to The Arts Center at NYUAD on 9 October, and we are expecting great things from the performance.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Odeya Nini\u00a0is an LA-based experimental vocalist and composer whose work stretches the definition of music. She\u2019s interested in textural harmony, gesture, tonal animation, and the illumination of minute sounds, and in her solo vocal work that\u2019s extended to include the body as well as the voice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nini has collaborated with dancers, visual artists, filmmakers, and theatre directors as both a composer and soloist; she has lectured on contemporary vocal techniques, composition, and the intersection with holistic practices; and she leads vocal sound baths, workshops, and retreats exploring the healing qualities of embodied voice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But her musical journey started in a much more conventional milieu. \u201cI began with a love for theatre as a child and had a deep love for the embodiment of characters and story,\u201d she told us. \u201cI went on to study theatre throughout high school, but I eventually realised music was where I could express myself more fully and within my own parameters.\u201d So singing in musicals wasn\u2019t enough; prewritten scripts and prescribed ways of performing on a theatre stage weren\u2019t enough, and she attended New York\u2019s New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music as an undergraduate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That BFA course is where she discovered improvisation, and ultimately free improvisation. \u201cIt was the world of playing with extending my instrument in an improv ensemble, listening to the sounds of our environment and trying to create that sound with my voice, looking at a graphic score or reading a text score and interpreting it in my own time, dynamics, sounds, expression, harmony, that revealed to me a world of freedom, a freedom that is composition in real time. The presence and the type of listening and concentration I needed to \u2018free improv\u2019 introduced a mental and physical state of being as a musician that I found great satisfaction in.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When she started free improvising she realised she could make her own way in singing, find her own comfort zone. In an interview she has described how transformative this was. \u201cWith any challenge I had with my voice \u2014 like if I was running out of breath \u2014 I could follow my own rhythm and listen in a different way. Whatever came up, I would turn that into something musical. I could improvise with texture and the shape of my mouth to get different kinds of sounds, which took me away from notes, pitches, melodies \u2026 I found a whole world of sounds that I could make.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time she was also studying to be a yoga instructor, and that too had a major impact on the development of her art. \u201cYoga, with its mind-body connection and the awareness of breath and meditation, seemed to run in parallel with performing jazz and improvising. That was the real\u00a0aha!\u00a0moment for me as an artist.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her chamber music compositions are rather different to her performances for voice, not least because she writes vocal music only for her own voice and instrumental music only for other performers. \u201cMy vocal practice is a personal one \u2013 I am interested in discovering the abilities of my own voice and expression, embodiment, and resonance. I practice becoming a vessel for what wants to move through me and feel the dynamic energy of my breath move my sound through the room and audience.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The result in her performance pieces is a kind of structured improvisation. \u201cThe process begins with writing \u2013 I journal about where I am and what I am thinking about, and what arc I imagine. So I have roadmaps and sounds premeditated, but the structure is open. I let the resonance of the space, and the people in front of me, guide my performance.\u201d So it is an improvisation, which she describes as \u201cas composition in real time\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ode<\/em> is a vocal performance in six pieces, released on album<\/a> in 2022 and described by one reviewer as \u201cwell suited to those who are interested in listening experiences over melodic content\u201d. They also described the tracks as  \u201csound poems\u201d, and Odeya Nini is happy enough with that \u2013 \u201cyes, I very much feel my music to be like sound poetry \u2013 the kind of poetry that pulls words and imagery in from various directions to both disorient you and focus you. The kind of poetry that you feel was written only for you\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n

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In those pieces Nini explores a wide collection of styles and harmonic ranges with her own voice, sometimes as collages of sounds. The result is a landscape of textural and tonal shifts that range from melodic lyrical passages to earthy, body-deep growls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For her Abu Dhabi performance, Nini won\u2019t be merely reprising the album. \u201cOde<\/em> is meant to be a title that could apply to any variation of my performance \u2013 the performance itself is an ode. So I will perform some pieces that are on the album, others that are not.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And while some of the album pieces are multitracked, the Arts Center performance will be solo unamplified voice with no electronic aids. For some pieces she will be accompanying herself with the drone of a shruti box, an Indian instrument that uses a system of bellows, and the soft, soothing vibrations of flow chimes used in meditation and sound healing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the audience\u2019s viewpoint, Ode<\/em> is about the listening experience rather than the melodic content. When she sings, Nini is mindful of every part of her body as a force of expression, and at times she literally embodies the sounds she\u2019s making \u2013 getting on her knees and contracting her body to reach a deep, harsh tone, for instance, if that\u2019s what it takes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The result is in many ways the essence of art, the ability for the individual to contribute something to the piece they\u2019re seeing or hearing or observing. \u201cI remember when I first encountered Richard Serra\u2019s work and how in complete awe I was of how I was invited to engage with it,\u201d Nini told magpie. \u201cWhen I think of the many things that have influenced me, what they have in common is space for me to imagine more than what is there \u2013 art or performance or sound that leaves room for me to make it my own. It is the quality of the abstract space that has drawn me in and inspired me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI want people to feel my music,\u201d Nini has said. \u201cI want to create a performance that is an experience where people respond with a feeling, not a reflection of what they heard but what they felt.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ode<\/a><\/em> will be performed by Odeya Nini in The Arts Center Lobby at 7.30pm on Wednesday 9 October, presented by The Arts Center in collaboration with the NYUAD Music Program. Tickets are free and available here<\/a>.<\/strong><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cToday I call myself an interdisciplinary artist\u201d, Odeya Nini told magpie. \u201cMy practice is one that is an experience of the aural, visual, mental and physical.\u201d She\u2019s bringing that experience to The Arts Center at NYUAD on 9 October, and [… more]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":57853,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-performance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/magpie.ae\/staging4\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/magpie.ae\/staging4\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/magpie.ae\/staging4\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magpie.ae\/staging4\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magpie.ae\/staging4\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57851"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/magpie.ae\/staging4\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57851\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magpie.ae\/staging4\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/magpie.ae\/staging4\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magpie.ae\/staging4\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magpie.ae\/staging4\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}