The Sound Voice Project review – a shattering digital installation at the Royal Ballet and Opera
A unique and poignant exploration of what it means to have a voice.
Do we take our voices for granted? Not being able to articulate thoughts through the power of speech is something I’d never thought about before seeing The Sound Voice Project – a remarkable 30 minute multimedia installation in the Linbury Theatre. Challenging, distressing, thought-provoking – these were the words that immediately sprung to mind when I made my way out of the darkness into the light of The Linbury’s bar and foyer. And an overwhelming sense of gratitude that, for now at any rate, my voice is healthy.
That luxury is something that motor neurone disease (MND) and cancer has taken away from those whose stories are so movingly and eloquently told in The Sound Voice Project. We enter, only about 40 of us at a time, an unlit Linbury Theatre – we are on the stage, seated in a circle – three vertical, lifesize scrims are at its centre, brought vividly to life by Luke Hall’s ambitious video designs.
