Songs of Worship.
SONGS OF WORSHIP is a vinyl emerging from a live performance at the Swiss Church in 2024, where participants and musicians explored sound, voice rituals, movement, and improvisation through bespoke sound sculptures.
The Performance
A Home is a Cloud was a participatory performance developed by Amanda Camenisch and Therese Westin in collaboration with 20 participants over a 16-month process of workshops and rehearsals. Working with the Lyra methodology (read more here), participants engaged with musical improvisation, composition, sound exploration, and movement, reflecting on themes of migration, ancestry, and belonging.
The performance drew from the lived experiences of participants, many of whom expressed the feeling that migration can strip a person of their sense of wholeness, leaving them suspended, rootless, or “lost in space.” Against this narrative, A Home is a Cloud proposed another image: that human beings are more like clouds than trees. Unlike trees, we are not bound to one soil. Like clouds, we can move, transform, and carry with us the capacity to nurture and fertilise new ground.
The process integrated the Archive of Gestures (read more here), a long-term practice through which participants explored how memory and ancestry are carried in the body. In weekly sessions, participants offered spontaneous movements that were collectively repeated, uncovering gestures rooted in childhood, cultural rituals, care practices, or ancestral knowledge. These gestures, often arising unconsciously, became a living archive, repositories of memory and resilience.
Through this process, A Home is a Cloud evolved into a 45-minute performance score, combining collective song, improvised sound, and choreographed movement. Interwoven with individual solos, the work explored questions such as:
What if our bodies carry songs we’ve never sung? What if our gestures are archives, transmitting memory through blood, bone, and breath?
The project reframed performance as a site of remembrance, healing, and co-creation. By embodying gestures and sounds that surfaced through the workshops, participants transformed personal and collective histories into a shared expression of resilience and belonging, demonstrating how art can offer new imaginaries of home, faith, and community beyond national or political boundaries.
Songs of Worship
Songs of Worship is a vinyl compiling recordings from A Home is Cloud live performance, studio sessions and outtakes January-March 2024.
Conceived by Amanda Camenisch and Therese Westin in collaboration with participants Abimbola, Clara Soyinka, Dotty, Elizabeth Addoi, Florence Musa, Freida C McNeial, Funmilda Olojo, Grace Ade, Grace Owolabi, Jani, Ladun Mary Oguntoyinbo, Priyanka G Geriya, Leo, Ms Jumoke, Margaret, Pham B Long, Sharon, Sungyeon Kim, Vanessa Mirza, Zara. Musicians and artist friends Ilyas Kassam, Moshi Honen, Clementine Brown, Sille Kima, Peter Yardley Jones, and the high holborn Choir, Yang Wern Ooi bass, Lucy Handscomb soprano, Sarah Ann Marze soprano, Nicola McMullen alto, Ananya Samuel alto, Chris Esdaile tenor, Neil Kenward tenor
Sharon, a participant in the project, sharing her experience:
“My name is Sharon, and I came to this project through a recommendation from Dotty, whom I met at other interconnected groups, such as the Asian (All) Women’s Resource Centre in Brent.
Performing was both an amazing and calming experience. It was great to use movement and sound and to learn how each can positively influence your mood.
Movement is a language that connects us to our ancestors. So much of what we do is innate and instinctive. These instincts have evolved over millennia, becoming part of our DNA, part of our heritage. I believe information is stored in the body, mind, and spirit, and that this information is passed down to us by our ancestors. Sometimes we reach conclusions instinctively without really knowing how, it’s something deeper, something primal.
When you move in a performance, the body becomes more fluid, more consciously coordinated. When I sing or create sounds, I aim for resonance. Sound doesn’t have to be melodious to be beautiful; it just needs to massage the senses.
When I dance and move, I can either be fully aware of my surroundings or block them out entirely. In these moments, I channel my inner feline, majestic, stealthy, and playful.
The repetition of movement, dance, song, and sound in the performance influences my well-being through vibrations, tones, and the strengthening of both mind and body.
To heal, or to be healed, means finding peace with yourself and the universe. It means letting go of unnecessary worries and taking things in stride.
I believe community can play a significant role in healing—but only if that community truly has your back.”
SIDE A
0.00 Sungyeon’s Drum
4.50 Electric Harp
8.10 Bells
13.0 Toning
SIDE B
0.00 Call and Response
4.50 Heartbeat of a Forest
8.10 Ah Ope loye
11.56 Danase
Listen to the digital version of the vinyl recording here
This project was supported by Arts Council England, Space Ilford, Metroland Cultures, Swiss Church and Montez Press Radio.
