Voicing Activism
Frankie Armstrong – Keynote talk
at AOMO Conference, Liverpool , Thursday 18th August
AoMO2022 Art as Activism(18th-21st August): Draft Conference Programme
Why is it we talk about a people, an oppressed minority, or indeed an oppressed majority (women) “finding their voice”?
From the suffragettes, through the anti-apartheid movement and Greenham Common and many other political movements, it is raising their voices together that has helped them both to keep in the struggle and to be heard. It may be an individual voice such as Victor Hara in Chile, or the collective voices of the children of Soweto, but it is the quality of the voice that called to Frankie. It was Pete Seeger in the 1950s that stirred Frankie into this realisation, with songs that spoke to both the head and the heart.
Since then she has been singing songs that are an expression of working people, songs from women’s lives, songs of people struggling against oppression, of daughters against tyrannical fathers (in the folk tradition), and about the environment or social inequality.
In 1975, she began running voice workshops. Her teaching is aimed at helping others find the same sense of energy and power of communication that she experienced as a solo singer.
In her keynote presentation, she’ll also speak about her feeling that the beauty and power expressed through voice can engage the artistry available to all of us.
Why is it we talk about a people, an oppressed minority, or indeed an oppressed majority (women) “finding their voice”?
From the suffragettes, through the anti-apartheid movement and Greenham Common and many other political movements, it is raising their voices together that has helped them both to keep in the struggle and to be heard. It may be an individual voice such as Victor Hara in Chile, or the collective voices of the children of Soweto, but it is the quality of the voice that called to Frankie. It was Pete Seeger in the 1950s that stirred Frankie into this realisation, with songs that spoke to both the head and the heart.
Since then she has been singing songs that are an expression of working people, songs from women’s lives, songs of people struggling against oppression, of daughters against tyrannical fathers (in the folk tradition), and about the environment or social inequality.
In 1975, she began running voice workshops. Her teaching is aimed at helping others find the same sense of energy and power of communication that she experienced as a solo singer.
In her keynote presentation, she’ll also speak about her feeling that the beauty and power expressed through voice can engage the artistry available to all of us.