Diamanda Galás

DIAMANDA GALÁS — VOICE AS MATERIAL BODY / THE CONCERT AS RITUAL ACCUSATION

Galás expands performance through voice: body, language, noise, attack, lament, multiple persona and ritual material. The concert can become ritual accusation.

PLAGUE MASS — 1990/1991

Plague Mass was recorded live on 12–13 October 1990 at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York, and released in 1991. Its AIDS-era political context is fundamental. ([Diamanda Galás][22])

REFUNCTIONING SACRED ARCHITECTURE

A cathedral normally supports worship, liturgy, religious authority and salvation. Galás uses it for a work functioning simultaneously as concert, lament, accusation, memorial and counter-liturgy.

CHURCH → TRIBUNAL + FUNERAL + RITUAL + PERFORMANCE SPACE

Meaning comes from VOICE + ARCHITECTURE + HISTORICAL CRISIS.

VOICE AS MULTIPLE BODY

Galás moves among vocal registers, timbres, languages, screams, speech and song. The spectator cannot stabilise one consistent psychological speaker. The physical body remains singular while the vocal body becomes plural: a site through which multiple forces appear.