Raging Affirmations

Sound Piece
by Shanti Suki Osman

In her sound piece, artist and educator Shanti Suki Osman explores the sonority of rage. Listen to a new episode of the Sonic Worlding column, which asks how one’s positionality is created by the people who listen.

In 2023, I was invited by friend and dancer Birte Opitz to feature in her dance and voice performance, Raging Affirmations, which was performed at the end of August and beginning of September 2023. The performance was a beautiful opportunity to sing and sound and explore the notion of rage and rage. It became apparent that narratives of rage do not always correspond with or complement each other. Alongside rehearsing and workshopping ideas for this performance, I was also developing methodologies for my current academic research which involved listening and positionalities and, more specifically, how my positionality is created by the people who listen to me. Whilst writing about these methodologies, I felt connections and repetitions from and in the performance and vocal work I had also been doing. This piece, Listening to Positionalised Rage, is an attempt to concretize some of those connections and considerations in sound.

«Sonic Worlding» is a monthly Norient column. It invites writers and artists from all over the world to to think and speculate with and not only about music. Where most music writing treats music as something that can be categorised and placed in pre-determined boxes (personality cults, end-of-year lists, genres, origins, styles), «Sonic Worlding» is interested in the vast potential of rhythms, ideas, and worlds that are still to be unlocked, attempting to spin new webs of thought spanning the globe. Edited & curated by Norient editor Philipp Rhensius.

Biography

Shanti Suki Osman is a Berlin-based artist, educator, and researcher working with song, sound, and radio, exploring the topics of identities, privilege and power, anti-racism, and feminism. She is a research associate and doctoral candidate for Music Pedagogy at Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg in Germany. Her PhD research investigates the experiences of women* of color and Black women* studying popular music in German Musikhochschulen.

Published on February 13, 2024

Last updated on August 21, 2024

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