Odeya Nini

Odeya Nini. Photo credit :Adeline Newman
Odeya Nini. Photo credit :Adeline Newman

This month’s artist spotlight is Odeya Nini.

UPDATE: the live public event on January 20 has been canceled due to UCI’s updated Covid-19 protocols and has extended remote instruction through January 28.

Combine all of the control of Tuvan throat singing, but with the novelty of Rahzel, and an added touch of untethered whimsical exploration, Odeya Nini brings to light a new, vibrant exploration of human sound. Arguably with a goal to stretch human sound, and introduce new resonance just as the Neptunes once did to music. That is likewise the beauty in what Nini does – she forces the listener to interrogate the very delineation between performance art, musical art and…sonorant art? 

No doubt, Nini is bringing us to new linguistic artistic heights, regardless of how you’d like to categorize her work.

Recently in partnership with the University of California Irvine Institute and Museum of California Art (UCI IMCA) as the Artist in Residence, Nini is part of both an academic engagement schedule (not open to the public), and winter performance schedule (open to the public).

In Nini’s UCI IMCA academic engagement program on January 18, 2022 (not open to the public), Nini engages in discussion with curator Erin Stout, PhD. Discourse planned is to surround how sound, image, and touch are interconnected through movement and gesture. In addition to these questions and more, Nini and Stout will explore cross-cultural composition methods, as well as cross-cultural engagement with musical and extramusical performance.

Nini’s public event is to be held on January 20, 2022 from 4:00pm – 6:00pmPST at the Institute and Museum of California Art.

This public exhibition will feature Nini’s ongoing A Solo Performance (program description below):

Composed and performed by Odeya Nini, A Solo Voice is an ongoing investigation of resonance, extended vocal techniques, and pure expression. Evolving over the last ten years, the work consists of malleable compositions and improvisations that disassociate the voice from its traditional attributes. This results in a logic of song that is not only heard but felt and seen through movement and gesture.

In this rendition, Nini establishes a dialogue between the exhibition space, the works on view, and the audience, exploring visual and sonic possibilities of embodied sound. Using abstract communication to provoke and soothe, Nini draws the audience into a shared experience of breath, body, and sound.

Note that the performance is planned to take place live in the gallery, directly followed by a live Q & A with the artist.”

Artist Biography

Odeya Nini is a Los Angeles-based experimental vocalist and contemporary composer. At the locus of her interest is performance practices, textural harmony, gesture, tonal animation, and the illumination of minute sounds, in works spanning chamber music to vocal pieces and collages of musique concrète. Her solo vocal work extends the dimension and expression of the voice and body, creating a sonic and physical panorama of silence to noise and tenderness to grandeur. Odeya has collaborated extensively with dancers, visual artists, filmmakers and theater directors as both a composer and soloist and has worked with and appeared in works by artists and ensembles such as Meredith Monk, Butch Morris, Lucy & Jorge Orta, wild Up and The Industry.

Odeya’s work has been presented at venues and festivals across the US and internationally, such as The Hammer Museum, REDCAT, Joyce Soho, MONA and Art Basel Miami, from Los Angeles to Tel Aviv, Australia, Mongolia, Madagascar and Vietnam. She has lectured on contemporary vocal techniques and composition at the university level and leads workshops exploring the creative and healing qualities of voice and movement.

Odeya holds a BFA from the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music and an MFA in composition from California Institute of the Arts.

Artist:

Odeya Nini

Tickets:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/odeya-nini-a-solo-voice-tickets-222281619307

Price:

Free

When:

January 20, 2022 from 4:00pm – 6:00pmPST

Where:

Institute and Museum of California Art
18881 Von Karman Avenue
Irvine, CA 92612

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