The Commons Choir Brooklyn
The Prosodic Body is a new field of research that explores language as sound, embodiment, and utmost expression: tone, intention, rhythm, gesture, the tacit, and evocation are all acts of prosody. The Prosodic Body is a practice that manifests in various areas: principally performance, architecture, health, education, and socioeconomic justice. It is at once deeply committed to the cultural cruciality of poets and performers. The social aspect of this work is called "commoning.†The branch of commoning work is the Commons Choir.
Since 2006, the Prosodic Body has created 5 artworks out of its research in various disciplines—vocal and dance performance, architectural construction, film, and text—that each uniquely investigate how contemporary artistic practices can reunify language, the body, and the environment. All of the works are developed through a rigorous and challenging processes that produce rich experiences for its growing audience. In 2008, Anne Mercurio of Exploredance.com wrote, "Faïn and Kocik, along with their talented design team, have built an experience of purity, curiosity, rebellion, sweat, geometry, variables, intensity, abandon and reverberation, in sound and movement . . . with an adult depth of play and pain.†In 2010, Claudia La Rocco wrote in The New York Times: "Ms. Faïn is a remarkable dancer, trained in Asian and American practices ... What a pleasure it was to observe her moment-by-moment negotiation of the thrumming Stockhausen score...â€
The Prosodic Body repertoire includes: the installation An Anechoic Darkroom, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC), 2008; The Extent to Which, a co-presentation with Danspace/Center for Performance Research, 2008; Re-English, a co-presentation with Movement Research Festival/LMCC, 2010; Working with Stockhausen's Stimung 1968 presented by Danspace in 2010 and at Dance Theater Workshop, APAP in 2011; and Target::furnace at the Chocolate Factory, 2011.
The Prosodic Body has presented work in progress performances of E-V-E-R-Y-O-N-E (2010-2011) at: Dixon Place; Movement Research Spring Festival co-presented with LMCC; Poetry Project copresented with Danspace; for the New Museum Festival of Ideas; and at the Harlem Stage (America Project produced by MAPP International). Lecture-demonstrations have been given in 2010-2011 at New York University, Harvard University, San Francisco State University, Michigan State University, and Rutgers University.
