5 VOICES FOR 1

 

"Silenced forever their voices shall take the places of the stars"

 

"BILOURA ist eine internationale Theaterkompanie, die weltweit agiert und mit Kreativität, Tanz, Songs

und jeder Menge Spaß Betroffenen von Frauenhandel und Gewalt hilft,

ihre Stimme zu ergreifen und sich außerhalb der alltäglichen Routine durch Kunst mitzuteilen.
Auch in Österreich arbeiten die Powerfrauen von BILOURA mit Unterstützung von FOOTPRINT und LEFÖ daran,

die Lebensqualität von Betroffenen durch Stärkung der eigenen Selbstwahrnehmung und Identität zu verbessern."

FOOTPRINT WIEN, 2018

 

 

5 VOICES FOR 1 is a long-term research project which explores the artistic possibilities of creating echoes around the phenomenon of trafficking in women. The title 5 VOICES FOR 1 stands symbolically for the utopia that with each unheard, silenced voice, 5 new voices shall create echoes.

 

The project includes:

  • UNHEARD VOICES - a series of creative workshops with former trafficked women in several countries
  • ECHO - a visual sound installation projecting women's voices into public urban spaces
  • 5 VOICES FOR 1 - a performance featuring 5 female artists from 5 continents approaching the topic from an intercultural perspective
5 VOICES FOR 1 originates in Italy, where in 2015 BILOURA Intercultural Arts Collective held a theatre workshop with refugees from Nigeria. The workshop resulted in the project ODI and a video - ethnographic documentation within the master thesis of the director and anthropologist Sara Casiccia. In the context of working with refugees in recent years, especially the extent of their "unheardness" became obvious. Refugees are oppressed on a large scale not only in Europe but all around the world and their voices stay mostly unheard.
In the course of ODI project, BILOURA was able to meet several trafficked street prostitutes from Africa that created a strong impact on the artistic work. The tremendous power and strength of these women, who experience the unimaginable, stands as a strong contrast to the helpless victims, as they are often portrayed. The result was a desire to find Ears that are open to these strong voices and explore the possibility of art as a bridge of dialogue between cultures in order to create attention on the phenomenon of trafficking.

 

The substantial aim of 5 VOICES FOR 1 is to give echo to these particular women, whom today, at this very moment, are trafficked in Europe and elsewhere. The artistic approach of the project functions as a tool to produce echoes of these voices without risking their identification that endangers them. For this reason, the project calls together 5 young female artists from different cultures: Lenna Bahule (Mozambique), Betzabel Falfan (Mexico), Silvia Ribero (Italy), Min Jun Park (South Korea) and Angie Rottensteiner (Austria). The five artists function as a bridge by using their crafts to produce those echoes.

 

Besides the content 5 VOICES FOR 1 aims also to be a meeting point for different artistic languages, fusing them in an original form that can be used as a tool. In fact, the five artists come from different backgrounds: music, dance, performing, visual, directing. Difference and similitude are the keys.

 

 

UNHEARD VOICES

 

Unheard Voices is a series of creative workshops with former trafficked women. The creative work with the women turns around empowerment, self-esteem and freedom rather than social stigmatization. From these meetings with the women sound material about their cultures, their everyday life and their future dreams is captured. Not the trafficking, but the women behind are put at the centre of attention. The women themselves take the voice and determine the content of their voices.

First workshops with trafficked women took place in summer 2017 in collaboration with the NGO TAMPEP in Turin, Italy.With the desire to bring the artistic work with trafficked women to Austria, BILOURAs artistic director Angie Rottensteiner applied with the project 5 VOICES FOR 1 successfully for the States Grant for Performing Arts 2017 given by the Ministry of Culture of Austria. The workshops with former trafficked women started in January 2018 in collaboration with the NGOs FOOTPRINT and LEFÖ IBF in Vienna.

 

ECHO

 

ECHO is a visual sound installation, projecting trafficked women's voices into public urban spaces.  The sound installation tracks unheard voices of trafficked women and explores and overcomes the silence around their voices. ECHO is projected into the public space and thus brings the voices of women to the place where they encounter pedestrians in everyday life. The women, who are traded in a capitalistic system - goods, product and demand - live in the centre of our society, but are mostly isolated and a deep silence surrounds them like an invisible border. Business with women for the sex market is flourishing better than ever and traded women from Africa, Eastern Europe and Asia are brought to Europe. The market is served due to high demand. ECHO aims to break the silence through subtle sound compositions. The women themselves determine the contents of their voices and thus manifest a subtle testimony of their presence in Europe. The contact and encounter take place through images that are evoked.

During the artistic work with trafficked women in Vienna - Austria from January to Mai 2018 sound material was captured during the creative workshops as well as in interviews. From this was created a first sound teaser, featuring their voices...