My fellow performer handed me her phone. She had just received a text from a friend, and it turned out I had been hugging that same friend in our last performance. I read the text and my breath caught a little:

“He sang just like my uncle, who’s passed away. And it felt like I was hugging him one last time”

There was more to the message, all of it very nice. But I couldn’t get over that one line. I still can’t get over it really.

One of the joys of singing, and performing in general, is branching out of our comfort zones and testing ourselves. A lot of the time I’ve done this with Pop-Up, whether it was Argentine circle singing or providing vocal back up to some extremely weird organ music. However it’s also good to branch out of the choir itself sometimes and try something truly outside the group’s repertoire and experience.

When the Southbank Centre’s singing initiative Voicelab contacted Pop-Up with some singing opportunities, one caught my eye. HUG. I wish I had better reasons for why it caught my eye and I chose to audition for it, but the real reason is pretty simple.

This thing sounded weird.Continue reading “Hugging strangers at the Southbank Centre”