JJJJJerome Ellis

Celebrating Stuttering Voices (2024)

performance (duration variable)

presented at The High Line, June 27, 2024; curated by Taylor Zakarin

From the High Line:

Celebrating Stuttering Voices will feature readings and conversation by both the artist and their four collaborators from the People Who Stutter Create (PWSC) collective—Jia Bin, Delicia Daniels, Conor Foran, and Kristel Kubart—interspersed with occasional musical interludes by Ellis. Through repeated sounds, prolonged sounds, and blocks with no sound, PWSC aims to describe and transform social reality. Celebrating Stuttering Voices will offer an intimate opportunity to create room for deep listening, understanding, and collaboration. 

A brief description of the music played in Celebrating Stuttering Voices:

Ellis performs the music with tenor saxophone, electronic sounds from a laptop, and their voice. Most of the music is slow and without a steady beat.

In some moments, the electronic sounds are like a forest, and Ellis’ saxophone like a bird flying through it. In some moments, there are low, droning notes; the audience may feel these low notes as vibrations in their bodies. In some moments, Ellis’ voice sings the names of plant species that grow on the High Line. Ellis often sings in falsetto—their voice can be quiet and breathy.

The different sections of the music fade in and out of each other gradually.

Ellis likens the performance to making soup: different musical ingredients are added one by one, melding to (hopefully) form something with deep flavor!