Arone Dyer / Dronechoir
Lode*
Music
Arone Dyer’s Dronechoir is a boundary-blurring, ever-evolving, highly interactive musical experience that aims to provide new or deeper connections between participants and audience members alike since 2015.
A curated group of vocalists from diverse backgrounds perform an unrehearsed a capella piece in which musical cues and venue-specific movement directions are fed to them through earphones, physically foregrounding specific singers or creating positional unity at different points in the piece. As a result, the singers may move closer to each other and members of the audience than is typical or expected, bringing depth to the experience by challenging comfort barriers and introducing a heightened sense of engagement with the performance.
Tickets to singular performances go on sale January 10, but you can secure your Festival Pass to The Dark now!
Arone Dyer does a lot of things that don’t fit in tidy boxes. She has produced sound as a vocalist, musician, composer & as a founding member of the uncategorical duo Buke and Gase since 2007, which has toured around the globe multiple times. Outside of Buke and Gase, she’s founded the roving, ever-evolving, non-static Dronechoir, which continues to be performed across the US and in Europe. To support her music-habit she ventures into voiceover work, she teaches kids how to fix and ride bicycles in her community, has a landscaping side-hustle, and engages in her community as a Volunteer Firefighter.
As director, composer, curator and performer, my aim for Dronechoir is to present a social performance experiment by presenting beautiful musical experiences that provide new or deeper connections between female musicians of different cultures, ethnicities, musical backgrounds and communities. Dronechoir performances require no fewer than four female (including female-leaning LGBTQQIP2SAA) vocalists who perform an unrehearsed a’capella piece that I’ve composed. Each singer is given musical and movement cues through earphones.
Although the base composition of the piece is a constant, Dronechoir continuously reshapes itself through space-specific movement directions that are fed to generous, adventurous vocalists of diverse backgrounds whose voices vary in volume, range and timbre — which is where the movement directions come into play, physically foregrounding specific singers at different points in the piece. As a result, the singers may move closer to members of the audience than expected, bringing depth to the listener’s experience by challenging comfort barriers and introducing a heightened sense of engagement with the performance.
But discomfort is also a factor for the performers: Dronechoir combines unfamiliar collaborators with an unrehearsed performance, and everyone is singing together for the first time with people they may never have met before. We’re given the opportunity to become comfortable with our discomfort, settling into the unknown. Throughout the piece, the vocalists learn what their role is within the choir and composition. By committing to this unrehearsed performance they naturally demonstrate a sense of hope and support, acceptance with what is in the moment, love and respect to our audiences and each other.
Arone Dyer
