Maria Lepistö
Maria Lepistö (SWE) is a mixed media performance artist working with script-writing and rhetorics, sometimes in combination with video and sound. She sometimes takes the role of a director and sometimes as a solo performer with stand-up monologues. Inspired by famous speeches by presidents and celebrities, preaching and animal communication, her work pays special attention to the sound and rhythm of language and the physical sensation of a voice.
Maria’s practice includes many collaborations, for example The Animals Were Never Alone, a public space performance about a scientific archive of voice recordings of animals and Bob Marley is the Name of a Bird, a work about Surinamese singing birds. In the Animal Choir, she directed a group of people who once had learned to imitate the sound of an animal, to perform together as a choir. Other collaborations include a dance group toddlers (TINY & mighty, 2017), a choir (Saxenborn Singers, 2016) as well as individual performers, actors, and musicians.