FLOODESIGN

slim: be grateful for what is offered or spend your life in resistance. This ultimatum serves as a reminder that representation won't protect me from the crushing weight of White fantasy. With this in mind, I cultivate quiet to animate the radical imagination needed to ground my sense of self in something other than the White gaze. Here, my existence serves a purpose beyond nourishing voracious colonial curiosities. How does one access quiet through music and sound? Pauline Oliveros' series of text compositions, "Sonic Meditations," offers a rich example of how musicians may begin to explore quiet in their practice. By engaging with imagined and consequential sound through various exercises in sonic awareness, Oliveros encourages participants to find healing through the process of revealing their inner experiences to others, and having their values and memories integrated in the present. In my individual practice, I have found quiet in long tones. Untethered by the pressures of measured time and tonal direction, I delight in the process of embodied euphony. I have found it in the space between changes of color, timbre and vibrato while exploring the opening C# of the flute solo in Debussy's Prelude to "Afternoon of a Faun." During performances and rehearsals, I have found it in the hushed, intimate buzz that seeps into rehearsal spaces during movements marked "tacet." 1 In this active, quiet space, I am temporarily released from the gaze. I suspend performance to hold water in my mouth and observe neighbors sharpening reeds, polishing instruments, releasing valves and running palms against dampened foreheads. Here, I gather meaning through moments that are perceptible, intelligible, valued and witnessed by no one other than myself. In claiming quiet, I learn to see my relationship to practice with more nuance and a fuller sense of gratitude for the unremarkable. Quiet satisfies the in/eternal longing to just be, even if that means becoming unintelligible within the epistemological structures of the White gaze. In Japanese culture, "ma" describes the interval of silence and nothingness that exists between people, objects, conversations, actions and sounds. It is a fertile space guided by internal measurements of time and experienced in the imagination, both individual and collective, heightening the affect of that which came before and that which is to come. As a performer, I have found ma in the slight hesitation before resolving a suspension or the space between a preparatory breath and the entrance of a solo. It is in the moments just before the release of the next downbeat, when the last oscillations of vibration from the previous movement are more felt than heard. A reminder that no space is ever truly empty, despite the colonial mentality which asserts that blank —- cleared —- space is reserved for the imagination of those who wield institutional, economic and socio-political power. When I sit in quiet, the pressures of exceptionalism fade into the background, giving way to the internal chaos, contradictions, nuance, imagination, memory and mundanity that make me wholly human. Quiet gives shape to internal sensibilities that structure everything I call into existence, including sound. When asked to describe her definition of freedom, Nina Simone replied with unflinching conviction, "no fear!" In the space of quiet, my subjectivity matters, and in claiming it without fear, each performance, practice session and improvisation becomes my sovereign space. IN MY INDIVIDUAL PRACTICE, I HAVE FOUND QUIET IN LONG TONES. UNTETHERED BY THE PRESSURES OF MEASURED TIME AND TONAL DIRECTION, I DELIGHT IN THE PROCESS OF EMBODIED EUPHONY. I HAVE FOUND IT IN THE SPACE BETWEEN CHANGES OF COLOR, TIMBRE AND VIBRATO WHILE EXPLORING THE OPENING C# OF THE FLUTE SOLO IN DEBUSSY'S PRELUDE TO "AFTERNOON OF A FAUN." 1 In musical terminology, tacet is a directive that describes a prolonged interval of silence, typically lasting the duration of an entire movement or large portion of a musical piece. 5 | PEAKPERFS.ORG PHOTO: KIMI MOJICA

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