Sep

Final Performance of PhD Candidate in Artistic Research | Felicita Brusoni: “A Voice Beyond the Edge”

15 September 2026 19:00 to 20:00 | Concert

A woman lying in another woman's knees. Photo. — Photo: Manuela De Rosa

With the defence performance “Red Carpet,” the audience will experience an artistic research performance by and featuring Felicita Brusoni, in which voice and body are used to explore the potential of creation and the feminine as a form of expression.

A vocal-body composition for an Extended Singer and dancer

Creation is one of the most unexpressed possibilities of the Extended Singer, the idiomatic figure at the core of my doctoral project. The pure creative process is at the core of the emancipation to which the contemporary music interpreter can aspire to redeem herself/himself from the standard position of a mere executor of someone else’s music.

This case study was expressly designed to test the risk of exposing a singer to the challenge of pure creation and to collaborating with another artist, dancer Valentina Sechi, using no score or charts to build a composition based on only two elements: voice and body.

"Red Carpet" is a performance that, spanning the present and the past, investigates forms of exorcising repression in the feminine, understood as a collective archetype that has always had to devise ways to manifest itself and survive in its essence. On the "Red Carpet", images of women, two yet numerous, parade, embodying, through multiple vocal techniques and bodily utterances, the cries of a “collective trauma” that suffocates the expression of the self.

Body and voice are the protagonists, symbols of both censorship and expression par excellence, and serve as a means of individual exploration and collective voicing. On this red carpet, a metaphor for formal public exposure, the singer tries to give voice to those told to remain silent, and the dancer to give substance to catharsis, in a succession of anarchic fragilities and ferocious desires to survive.

About the artists

Felicita Brusoni started making weird sounds with her voice from the very beginning of her life: her baby babbling was already insanely virtuosic. After a first-class Master’s degree in Vocal Chamber Music (2017), she started learning all the eerie vocal techniques she could and began collaborating with living composers. In recent years, she was fortunate to add an ongoing PhD project in Artistic Research at Lund University to her artistry.

She had the honour of premiering operas and several pieces written for her voice. In 2012, she co-founded Helmut Duo with pianist Matteo Bogazzi. She took part in renowned festivals such as the Biennale di Venezia, the Darmstädter Ferienkurse, the Festival Aperto di Reggio Emilia, the John Cage Orgel Foundation, the Ravenna Festival, the Stockhausen-Konzerte und -Kurse in Kürten.

In 2024, she was awarded the prestigious “Michiko Hirayama” scholarship from the Fondazione Scelsi in Rome. She teaches Vocal Chamber Music at the Conservatory of Pescara, Italy. Despite deeply loving the Mediterranean Sea, she lives in windy and chilly Malmö, Sweden.

Valentina Sechi is a multifaceted Italian artist, dancer and choreographer. Her training, which began in Sardinia, led her to study with internationally renowned teachers, perfecting her technique in Italy and abroad. She has performed in important opera productions, collaborating with internationally renowned directors such as Micha Van Hoecke, Davide Livermore and Franco Zeffirelli. Her versatility has led her to work with numerous companies, among the most recent ones we remember ALDES, Adarte, Compagnia Verdiliadanza, of which she is an associated artist, and Compagnia TPO, treading prestigious stages all over the world, from the BAM in New York to the Philharmonie de Paris. In addition to her activity as an interpreter, she is the author and choreographer of shows that range from dance theatre to more experimental performances, often focused on themes of social relevance. Parallel to her artistic career, she is an appreciated dance teacher.