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Channel / Source:
TEDx Talks
Published: 2017-08-31
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1v7Bpsk6y8
two years ago I attended a big conference in the US all international politics I was in a panel dealing with war and emotions and for my panel presentation I had a crazy idea in my hand luggage I carried a small sound system and a microphone and my plan was instead of giving the usual talk I would sing two of my songs one about the disappearance of
ordinary people in wartime Chechnya and another about the death boy escaping the war zone but he didn't go quite the way I planned because somewhere in the middle of the second song I noticed people standing by the panel room doorway they had come there because I was being too loud serving the other panels I was already feeling anxious to be singing in a conference but now
my performance was being disturbed and I have to make a decision really fast either to stop singing well to continue but I have come all the way from Finland and I would not be silenced so I made a joke in between and I continued to the end but I don't think it was just a combination of the disability rolls and the thing walls which made my
singing inappropriate for some I believe it was the challenge I posed through traditional academic ways of being and doing the emotion less motionless Sirius Skyler four bodies to be categorized as stabilized they need to be spilt and singing on speechless the researchers body it read situate sit and redefines I now call this approach of mine new systems musical resistance and for me resist us means doing
it different in my work I have made singing and song writing an actual practice of research and I thought these can punch and move people the songs I have written draw from my research on the wars in Chechnya they are a means to emotional engagement and a means to encounter a world you might not normally see muses those is a form of storytelling which makes passion
and sensibility central to producing insights and muses those is based on the fact that we are musical beings human beings have a special musical memory and the capacity to perceive music and cirrhosis moreover musical experience east emotional it's physical it's muscular everyone can experience music even the most profoundly deaf consensus various sorts of noises and vibration music is powerful because it's affected its carnal knowledge suppressing
things which cannot be said music is powerful because it gets easier rabbi down two years ago so no wonder music is being used for political ordering and he's ordering for propaganda full national revival the boasting the moral of military troops and hope of civilians in wartime and resistance music like art in general is a force to tell Tara Regina's have both taken advantage of and being
afraid of bonding and censoring music war is also a sonic experience which is why I was so intrigued but the deaf boy I make the song about he couldn't hear the bombings and that made him less afraid I also learned from a to Chen mon I interviewed but Chechen dance and music are forms of resistance they give life force and a sense of freedom but when
I began my research on the wars in Chechnya I faced a dilemma academic writing is ill suited for the intensity and intimacy off the stories from a war zone academic writing easy motionless but the war it's all about emotions then how to write about the motion without emotion it didn't make sense to me in my frustration I found a different shape intuitively music started happening in
me I was transformed as a researcher and as a human being I began thinking through sound feeling through music and researching with emotion I became mindful of inner metronome and I realize this is not even a new methodology we are doing it already thinking through the flesh sensing the world corporately the body knows and the body remembers this is why the resistance its resistance to the
binaries off the mind and body knowledge on the motion which the will persist singing challenges the rationalist these embodied model of knowing music speaks and communicates directly to the body giving and exchanging something lasting and profound but I wasn't a trained musician in fact still three years ago I hated my voice and that took me to a vocal coach I thought I could learn to speak
with a more confident voice but my singing teacher ask me to sing let's try she said and I tried and I found my voice I carried a lot of shame but I walked through it from shame singing from shame song writing shop from shame performing singing is an act affordability the singer is a vulnerable but the listener as vulnerable as well and boulder ability I believe
is a space for something you can emerge it's a space over systems and come the story about the conference I shared earlier in this talk I once returned to something meaningful which happened bite before I took the stage an exchange of vulnerability I was so nervous shaking I'm shaking a bit now as well I was about to potentially make a fool out of myself singing a
conference but my vulnerability triggered something female scholar was seated next to me she was one of the panel speakers and we hadn't met before she asked me why are you so nervous and I said I'm going to sing she looked at me and said you know what's I'm going to change my presentation support me and she went for a personal story instead of the talks he
had planned but that's not all while we waited for our turn she grabbed my hand and held it that act of kindness the physicality of the act the touching of skin on the transmission of warns holding the hand of a stranger in the middle of a conference panel in front of everyone has helped me you come even bolder because when my hand was being held I
was being told I got to and you'll do great the hand told me that the hand kept feeding me the message confidence I touched and I was touched by and that led to a connection art creates connections and uses those as a collective effort I gather with the musicians together but the listener finally but not finally there's one more point muses because it's not only meant
for the academic audience it's a way to reach out from that exclusive circle so I have performed in various public events for example in protest in London against one of the world's biggest arms fairs displaying gone syndromes and tanks and so forth and they're a bypass Sir shouted to office academics activists get a job and we laughed these what's that job this was my job I
knew I had found my way of speaking out and now finally I want to encourage you in paying attention to the inside inherent in the body the body transmitting emotions through such acts as holding the hand I want to implant the idea that there's always the possibility I think different and to do different I believe you can find capacities you didn't know existed when you take
the risk and explore different shapes and forms you can practice your systems by the radical act of slowing down stopping to listen to yourself and to listen to others curiously new systems comes from silence in this noisy world and then find your own path and follow that path regardless what others think and say search from your soul and writes with your body and the song is
quote lie they regret vote joystick to the poor when days they will have when you have the chance makes you know they they using very loud Jose play to the nine it's a lot a lot don't it's a lie when for the pain site that strong they NDEs they cry now they buy no say out for I say I don't need some say I don't need
