Laraaji at Schindler House (Photo by Sam Lee)
In September of 2021 we began an ongoing
conversation with experimental vocalist and
contemporary composer Odeya Nini.
The topic? What it means for us to inhabit
and live in conversation with diverse
environments through our voice.
This question has guided us through nearly five years of collaboration, from the peaks of mountains to a historic Japanese Garden, from an abandoned water tower in Malibu to a 90yr old library at the foot of Griffith Park. When you meet a fellow fanatic of acoustic resonance, you explore.
This February eve, sit with us within the Schindler House, for a performance of voice and drone inspired by the spirit of Schindler’s 1920s and 30s salons to investigate the unique sonic and architectural properties that have cemented this home into the throes of history.
Through extended bodily resonance, textural harmony, gesture, and tonal animation, Odeya Nini will do what she does so distinctly and individually, utilize space as a raw material for vibrational sculpture. Archie Carey will accompany with lush harmonic drones to amplify the journey. With the MAK Center for Art and Architecture between exhibitions there’s no better time to gather, free our voice, lean into legacy, and breath new life and memory into being within the cultural landmark that is Schindler House.
living earth members receive a $5 discount
pls reach out if you haven’t received it!
Odeya Nini works to reclaim the voice as an instrument that can exist between the physical self and that which is beyond our senses. Her work extends the scope and expression of the voice and body, dynamically playing with spatial acoustics and magnifying sound’s capacity to touch all it encounters in tender, heartbreaking, and ecstatic ways.
Her work has been performed in diverse venues from concert halls to galleries, tunnels, and caves and has been presented at venues including The LA Phil, Merkin Concert Hall, The Broad Museum, and MOCA, as well as internationally in Australia, Mongolia, Madagascar, and Vietnam.
She is a member of the three time Grammy nominated ensemble Wild Up. Odeya's solo album ODE was recognized by The New Yorker as a notable recording of 2022 . She is the founder of Free The Voice and leads vocal sound meditations, workshops, and retreats exploring the transformative and healing qualities of embodying the voice.
In an early letter, Pauline Schindler wrote, “One of my dreams, Mother, is to have, someday, a little joy of a bungalow, on the edge of the woods and mountains near a crowded city, which shall be open just as some people’s hearts are open, to friends of all classes and types…”. Pauline realized that dream with her marriage to architect Rudolph Schindler. Together they built the 1922 Kings Road house that would come to be known as an architectural landmark, the birthplace of the Southern California modernism we celebrate today, The Schindler House.
Pauline’s radical social ideas informed its design as a live/work space for two couples, and Los Angeles’ artistic and political avant-garde flocked to her salons for decades. The MAK Center for Art and Architecture was conceived in this spirit and through seasonal exhibitions, tours, open hours, workshops, and so much more this very special home is a treasure of Los Angeles’ history.