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Colin Self

Colin Self challenges boundaries of perception with his art, music, and performances. Inspired by the work of Donna Haraway (Cyborg Manifesto, Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene), Siblings is the final segment of the six-part opera series entitled Elation. Informed by Self’s exploration of the ways of knowing, Siblings places a non-biological family at its center. The characters, bonded by curiosity and caring, generate ways of collectively coming together on a damaged planet. Self uses Siblings to define this familial experience through sound and its soundmakers. Feeding into Siblings is XHOIR, Self’s ongoing project of group vocal workshops for singing and listening, and a broad cast of kin including but not limited to Michael Beharie, Greg Fox (drums), Martine Syms (words and voice), The Mivos Quartet, and Raul De Nieves (cover art).

Siblings is Self’s second full-length release following 2015’s Elation. Siblings has been performed iteratively and internationally with humor, drama, and fierce song. Siblings’ MoMA PS1 staging in 2018 featured black-light messaging, countdown clocks, books on rope, and dancers adorned with swirling prints and LED lanterns. Self follows, in Haraway’s words, towards a “commitment to the finicky, disruptive details of good stories that don’t know how to finish.”

Self is currently working on their follow up to Siblings for RVNG.