Cipher is a work of contemporary vocal art that unravels the form of North Indian raga to excavate the transformative potentials embedded in rupture and loss.

The voice is a thread that navigates the multitudes of geographies, histories, and energies that inhabit us.

Cipher touches the bottom of what moves the voice to utter, and the transparent surface where we see its shapes—all within a live, vibrational space.

Cipher was produced by MAPP International and received support from National Performance Network (NPN) Creation Fund project co-commissioned by Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA) in partnership with REDCAT, Atlas Center for the Performing Arts, and Center for the Arts at Virginia Tech and NPN. Cipher was co-commissioned by Wexner Center for the Arts at The Ohio State University, and was developed in part with the support of BRIC (Brooklyn, NY) and Atlas Center for the Performing Arts (Washington DC) and Topaz Arts (Queens, NY), and received funding support from the National Endowment for the Arts.

CREDITS

Conception, composition and performance by Samita Sinha

Artistic advising and visual art by Dani ReStack

Artistic advising by Tuomas Laitinen

Sound design by Dave Sharma

Lighting design and production direction by Chris Kuhl

Assistant lighting design by Devin Cameron

Costume design by Anna Telcs