The title of the play Five Songs (Kafka’s Sirens) refers to Franz Kafka’s short story The Silence of the Sirens. In his story, Kafka does not tell an alternative story to that of The Odyssey, a story that would say that the mermaids did not sing, but rather suggests a paradox: he insinuates a doubt of perspective, where perhaps lies what attracts Ulysses so much to approach mermaids…

It is to this paradoxical perspective that Songs & Voices refers. It is a form in which the poetic question is: what remains of the song when the voice disappears? This presence of song in the absence of a singing voice is the source of the sound research. And this first question calls for another: what is the voice without the song?

The exploration of these two dimensions has led to the creation of a vocal and instrumental musical journey between two extremes: extreme absence and extreme presence. A concert for six singers (soprano, mezzo-soprano, alto, tenor, baritone, bass), ten instrumentalists (clarinet, saxophone, trumpet, accordion, percussion, mandolin, guitar, harp, cello, double bass) and live electronics.