The Sound They Make When No One Listens

For Brazilian artist Thiago Granato, listening, not just hearing, is literally a subversive act. It can ultimately lead to the overthrow of the established order, when, for example, it means listening to those invisible people whose voices no one listens to, such as the minorities scorned by the Bolsonaro government. Exploring the mechanisms of active perception thus becomes a way to expose the structures of power and control that are exercised over individuals. In his new piece, The Sound They Make When No One Listens, created in Berlin at the height of the pandemic, the choreographer plunges his three dancers into the heart of what he calls a “listening design”, imagined with the musician David Kiers. The sounds produced by their own bodies, such as their breath or the sound of their steps, and those of the outside world – electronic music, noises, voices, etc. – guide the dramaturgy and the movements. Combined with the play of lights, they create an augmented sensory space. Listening becomes a way to go beyond appearances and to open up to another reality beyond the moving bodies.