Elaine Mitchener Projects is a vehicle for researching, developing and producing work conceived by Elaine Mitchener. The creative practice of Mitchener attempts to develop a dynamic methodology by combining a wide array of techniques and performance tropes drawn from multiple global vocal traditions, both traditional western classical, contemporary, vernacular and experimental, and fusing these with a variety of approaches to improvisation, philosophies of movement, and aspects of contemporary new music theatre and performance art.
This approach has resulted in full scale staged works such as On Being Human as Praxis (2020), the then + the now = now time (2019), SWEET TOOTH (2017), Of Leonardo da Vinci (2015), Industrialising Intimacy (2015) and orchestral work b r e a d t h b r e a t h (2018). Works researched, developed and produced by EMP arise out of Elaine’s philosophy of encounter-enact-engage, and combine found texts, sound, movement, vocalization, improvisation, and collaboration to create intimate and experimental music theatre performance pieces.
Mitchener’s artistic work as a vocalist, movement artist and composer is permeated by the awareness of past and present forms of discrimination, post-colonial wounds and its effect on humanity. Her work SWEET TOOTH is part of an ambitious project in constant evolution with a repertoire using different mediums to look upon the many aspects of Britain’s Atlantic legacies. Part of this body of work are durational piece [NAMES] and sound installation | Les Murs Sont Témoins | These Walls Bear Witness |.
Constantly innovating whilst investigating the past, EMP assembles close collaborators to confront today’s issues and reflect the times. Ongoing performance projects are grounded in an urgency to speak up: Vocal Classics of the Black Avant Garde (2017), The Jeanne Lee Project (2019), The Rolling Calf (2018), Charles-Mitchener Duo (2018).