ABSTRACT
In this chapter, performance maker and scholar Peter A. Campbell discusses his attempts to create engagement with social and political crises through chorus-focused performance. The choral works he has created since 2015, which use publicly available texts such as the CIA’s Torture Report and Mark Zuckerberg’s 2018 testimony before the U.S. Senate, both express and attempt to mitigate the crisis of intertwined media and political landscape by having large groups of people perform these texts chorally, live, and in public spaces. Campbell explores how chorus-focused performances might serve as a truly alternative news source in a digital age specifically because they are unmediated: they demand the shared breath, attention, and presence that political and social discourse currently lacks.
