Levy Lorenzo performs 'Aphasia' - Rewire 2021

As part of the Rewire 2021 online edition, Filipino-American artist and instrument builder Levy Lorenzo presented an exclusive performance of ‘Aphasia’ by Mark Applebaum. Aphasia, conceived originally for singer and two-channel tape, was commissioned by the GRM, Paris and composed for virtuoso singer Nicholas Isherwood. The tape, an idiosyncratic explosion of warped and mangled sounds, is made up exclusively of vocal samples, all provided by Isherwood and subsequently transformed digitally. Against the backdrop of this audio narrative, Lorenzo performed an elaborate set of hand gestures, an assiduously choreographed sign language of sorts. Each gesture is fastidiously synchronised to the tape in tight rhythmic coordination. The eccentricity of the hand gestures is perhaps upstaged only by the observation that Lorenzo produces no sound in concert.