Sound: Loop Love at the Cork Opera House

Loop Love is a voice-art experience designed for people with learning disabilities to explore vocal expression in a safe space and to discover their voice as theatrical art.

Loop Love is an innovative experience designed to empower people with learning disabilities by amplifying their often marginalised voices. Participants are invited to loop their sounds and make landscapes of vocal creativity with the help of professional vocal facilitators. This groundbreaking project by extended-voice professional Yvon Bonenfant builds on insights from a successful pilot program in partnership with Suisha Arts – Cope Foundation and aims to foster interactive vocal improvisation, transforming these expressions into intricate sonic loop patterns. 

Loop Love is a stunning sculptural object in folded wood, combined with the digital technology that means sounds made at the attached microphones replay on a loop. The experience is coming to the glass Elbow Room at Cork Opera House on Saturday 20 April as a free event for voice artists to discover sound art with an intimate audience of friends and family. The first experience for 4 co-artists and their friends and family members begins at 9.15am, and then a new group enters Cork Opera House every half hour until the final group of 4 enter at 1.15pm. Tickets to this 1-hour experience are free, but must be booked in advance at corkoperahouse.ie.

Each ticket-holder must be accompanied by a responsible adult. In addition, each ticket-holder is welcome to bring a second person – a friend or family member. Participants under 18 must be accompanied throughout the experience. Ear defenders and relaxed spaces are available on site.

If you would like to see where Loop Love will take place, to help prepare you for your visit, click here for a video.

If you would like to read an easy-read explanation of what happens, click here.

Image credit Marcin Lewandowski.