Soft tongues: a bioacoustic opera
The tongue of the frog is of the softest known biological materials on this planet. It is this softness that yields the stickiness needed to pluck a fly from mid air, slough skin in perpetual acts of self-consumption, and stretch voice in promulgating chorusing networks.
Joined by bioacousticians, Jami’s field recorder, and an amphibious choir, this work invites full swamp submersion as we listen episodically through the shapeshifting life (and afterlife) cycle of the frog.
Speak in tongues! Breath through your skin! Inherit the earth!
Soft tongues interweaves solo and choral singing, text, video, and field recording practices in an ongoing and shifting investigation around chorusing— specifically, into the overlapping vocal terrains between humans and amphibians. Beginning in 2022 with a bioacoustic field residency undertaken in collaboration with the Amphibian Natural History Lab at the University of Campinas, Brazil, Soft tongues: a bioacoustic opera, plays with the science recording as a form of subjective listening. With sound catalogues of extinct frogs and the artist’s own recordings of wetland choruses, Reimer composes immersive listening experiences inflected by mythological songs, speculative soundscapes, and ‘eavesdropped’ science recordings. Soft tongues: a bioacoustic opera interrogates the relational, adhesive, and compounding qualities of voice, and the listening that tethers it.
Joined by bioacousticians, Jami’s field recorder, and an amphibious choir, this work invites full swamp submersion as we listen episodically through the shapeshifting life (and afterlife) cycle of the frog.
Speak in tongues! Breath through your skin! Inherit the earth!
Soft tongues interweaves solo and choral singing, text, video, and field recording practices in an ongoing and shifting investigation around chorusing— specifically, into the overlapping vocal terrains between humans and amphibians. Beginning in 2022 with a bioacoustic field residency undertaken in collaboration with the Amphibian Natural History Lab at the University of Campinas, Brazil, Soft tongues: a bioacoustic opera, plays with the science recording as a form of subjective listening. With sound catalogues of extinct frogs and the artist’s own recordings of wetland choruses, Reimer composes immersive listening experiences inflected by mythological songs, speculative soundscapes, and ‘eavesdropped’ science recordings. Soft tongues: a bioacoustic opera interrogates the relational, adhesive, and compounding qualities of voice, and the listening that tethers it.
Iterations of Soft tongues include solo version for voice and stereo or quadraphonic sound and video, or staged ensemble version for soloist and choral/dancing ensemble
Soft tongues is ready to tour! Please contact for more information
Presentation history:
School for Contemporary Arts, Master of Fine Arts performance, Vancouver, May 2023
Biosonic! festival, produced by Active/Passive performance society Galiano island, March 2024
rEvolver festival, produced by Upintheair theatre, Cultch historic theatre, Vancouver, May 2024
Art in the Wild festival, Flin Flon Manitoba, September, 2024
Neuztec festival, produced by Garden City performance society, Victoria Conservatory of Music, Vicoria, November 2024
Indie Fest, produced by re:Naissance opera, Lobe Studio, Vancouver, November 2024
School for Contemporary Arts, Master of Fine Arts performance, Vancouver, May 2023
Biosonic! festival, produced by Active/Passive performance society Galiano island, March 2024
rEvolver festival, produced by Upintheair theatre, Cultch historic theatre, Vancouver, May 2024
Art in the Wild festival, Flin Flon Manitoba, September, 2024
Neuztec festival, produced by Garden City performance society, Victoria Conservatory of Music, Vicoria, November 2024
Indie Fest, produced by re:Naissance opera, Lobe Studio, Vancouver, November 2024
