Kusum Normoyle is an artist and musician working in the area of extended vocal techniques and noise for both performance and installation.
Her performances keep intervention, displacing normal expectations of the female body and voice very close. In performance these incursions are brief, extreme and physical. Here the female scream takes a much heavier tone; more like metal than hysteria, that drags the audience into a harder, faster display of screaming, amplification and feedback – This is sound in performance that makes you think being punched in the stomach whilst being massaged couldn’t be more fun.
Kusum has performed at numerous festivals and events including ISSUE Project Room in New York City in (2010), Superdeluxe at Artspace for the 17th Biennale of Sydney (2010), Liquid Architecture (2008), the NOWnow Sydney (2008), UrBANGUILD in Japan (2009), New Zealand and will showcase at the Ljubljana Biennale in Slovenia in September 2011.
What was the first band you saw live?
I saw Bob Dylan in High school
What’d you learn from them?
That a seminal reputation doesn’t necessarily lead to a good performance and that you should give up before you need to be put down.
Got any pre-gig rituals?
At least 20 minute silence, pacing, trying to get right down the bottom of the dark hole, then when the rocket has blasted it takes me a while to come back from the out of space black metal visit.
What do you think the most important issue facing artists in NSW is?
There are many which, are are not mutually exclusive, but a key one is the lack of dancing at gigs.
On a more serious note:
1. The lack of funding, or the rather the distribution of funding by the administrative bodies can leave a lot to be desired.
2. The lack of venues or cross practice spaces which allow for growth and experimentation, which is due to legislative restrictions and licensing = boring.
If you weren’t a musician, what do you reckon you’d be doing?
I’d be a wealthy house wife. Very seriously wealthy.