Parables of Our Talons: New Jewish Stories for Electroacoustic Voices

This thesis is a creative portfolio of written and recorded experiments and performances from September 2022 to April 2023. The culminating piece of my portfolio is a ritual performance called GOLEMATRIAK. This ritual, along with the rest of my portfolio, weaves together khazonus (Ashkenazi Jewish cantorial singing), extended vocal techniques, and electronic dance music in Yiddish, Hebrew, and English. During a historic rise of global antisemitism and transphobia, GOLEMATRIARK is an exaltation of queer, diasporic Jewish power. The golem is a proto-robot made of inorganic matter that one animates through sacred Jewish texts. I have been creating my own golems in the form of speaker-creatures, a collection of DIY speakers made of PVC pipes, frame drums, and metals that emit electroacoustic dance music with samples of my voice. In this text I will dance on the edges of the sound/word, voice/drum, and human/machine with documentation of my music, personal anecdotes, creative writing, sacred Jewish teachings, and the wisdom of Emilie Conrad, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Rachel Carson, Tanya Tagag, and others concerned with embodied, matriarchal wisdom