Chanter plus fort que la mer

While travelling through Gaspésie this summer, I saw this sign saying ‘Sing louder than the sea’ and I thought to myself that this was what I wanted to do. I want to sing to pay tribute to what we are destroying, I want to give it my strength, my support.

The performance consists of two parts: lying on a pile of plastic bags that I sewed together by hand to serve as a beach towel, I try to sing with water in my mouth. In the second part, the towel becomes a skirt, and I sing another song into the microphone.

Plastic bags as accessories, from beach towels to opera dresses, accompany this overwhelming temptation to sing. Navigating between singing out of tune and in tune, singing and speaking, popular songs and opera, what is left to say, to listen to, to endure?

‘Singing louder than the sea’ means holding back tears in a single mouth, facing our excesses, letting out the rage we are asked to drown.

It’s not the sea to drink, I promise you.