Impulsive Incantations

The migraine patient lives a nomadic life. In an almost ritualistic way she trudges between two worlds – a ceremonial procession that goes back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Health unavoidably induces sickness and only sickness will lead her back to health. She oscillates, fluctuates, pendulates and is therefore fated to live in constant adaptation to an ever-changing state of wellbeing. As sickness nor health are to be considered the norm and neither of both worlds provide a trustworthy shelter she could occupy long enough to fully acclimatize or settle, she buries her passports and choses to inhabit the borderlands. From this new head-quarters she witnesses migraine’s daily spectacle – an ever-ongoing battle between polarities: pain and comfort, desperation and inspiration, screams and silences, vomit and virtue.

As a singer and migraine patient I am drawn towards the relation between illness and the voice. In this PhD research I focus on Migraine Art and Migraine Music. My ‘Impulsive Incantations’ seek to rejoice in the aesthetics of a failing voice through evocative text, vocal improvisations and the search for a migrainous singing technique.

Supervisor: dr. Jeroen D'hoe (LUCA School of Arts & KU Leuven)     
Co-supervisor: prof. Anneleen Masschelein (KU Leuven)
Duration: 2018 - 2022

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Mariske Broeckmeyer (1991) is a Brussels-based singer, composer and PhD Researcher at LUCA School of Arts and KU Leuven.