Alain Platel & The Shout: Because I Sing
31 March & 1 April 2001
The Roundhouse, Chalk Farm, London NW1
"The choir is like a delicious fruit, an orange maybe. If you didn't have the skin and the pips and the segments, it wouldn't be that perfect orange." (Francesca Murray-Fuentes, Finchley Children's Music Group)
A one-off choral portrait of London on a massive scale, Because I Sing brought together voices raised from across the capital: an A-Z of urban choirs, sacred and secular, side-by-side in a theatrical tribute to the democracy and classlessness of singing.
In preparation composer Orlando Gough and choreographer Alain Platel excavated London's hidden choirs with Artangel and invited 16 distinctive and diverse groups - over 500 voices in all - to feature in a promenade event performed over two nights.
Gough and Platel's search for 'choirs of character' took them back and forth across the river from Haymarket (where a Maori group sings on Wednesdays) to Tooting, where the Kingdom Choir regularly kick up a Gospel storm, to the Congolese Christian Choir in Harlesden via the Gay Men's Chorus in Camden Town and a large group of children who raise the roof every Sunday afternoon in North Finchley. Masterminded by Alain Platel as a compelling piece of theatre rather than a choral concert, Because I Sing animated different spaces within the epic interior of Camden's Roundhouse to create a surprising portrait of contemporary London.
The Film
In parallel to Because I Sing, filmmaker Sophie Fiennes went on her own journey, forging relationships with these amateur choral groups to capture something of their very diverse worlds. The result was an idiosyncratic and poignant navigation of London's hidden voices and the communities in which they resound - and the first co-commission between Artangel Media and Channel 4. An excerpt can be seen here.
This project was supported by Arts Council England, Special Angels and The Company of Angels
