Signaling Sigils

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Numinous Cackling

was a 2025 performance within the larger experimental typography soft-sculpture project SIgnaling Sigils. For the Ides of March, I performed a solo act of wailing and signaling.

Like a prayer or radio waves cast into space, a signal carried quiet grief, fear, and faith. We signaled when seeking comrades, we signaled when organizing, we signaled when taking direct action. Even when sent without confidence in being heard, a signal was an act of persistent hope.

To do this, I used miniature meditation cushions, shaped into the three forms of the Kombinationschrift modular typographic system, designed by Joseph Albers in 1926 as a utopian distillation of the Latin alphabet. Modular typography, like trans experiences, embraced playfulness and liberation over legibility.

The cushions’ reflective sides created a photographic flatness that resembled typography, obscuring the bodies behind the text. Held in front of the body, they served as armor, allowing for vulnerability in the text rather than the body. This tactile comfort also allowed for vulnerability in vocal performance.

I did vocal somatic exercises that energetically purged me (and maybe us) of the rage I had been trying not to vomit up for weeks. I invited all in the audience to join me in some articulate and inarticulate sounds, in hopes that we could collectively signal a shift in our era.

Open Call for Paid Performance Collaborators

Looking for Paid Collaborators for a group performance piece that explores the body and gender in relation to letterforms and language, exploring the liberatory possibilities of identity– & text– (il)legibility.

Applications closed. contact me at sairgoetz@gmail.com if you are interested in future collaboration opportunities

Project Info

FAQs

 This project is made possible by Collective Futures Fund.


About this project

Project Commitment

  • 2–3 rehearsals

  • 1 performance

  • Budget for ~12 hrs of active human-human time, please factor in your own decompression time accordingly.

  • Nature of public distribution/audience (In person, on zoom, for film festivals, for Community Access Television, etc) TBD by cohort of collaborators

Project Timing

  • Fri Aug 1: application opens

  • Sun Aug 24: application closes

  • Wed Aug 27: applicants informed of status (including waitlist, if necessary), schedule/acceptance form sent to accepted cohort (including scheduling)

  • Sun Aug 31: schedule/acceptance form due

  • Mon Sept 1: rehearsal schedule firms up, waitlist folks invited

  • ~ Sept 10–Oct 4 OR ~ Oct 15–Oct 31: 2–3 in-person rehearsals, 1 performance, dates TBD by cohort

Pay

  • $300 honorarium (at minimum)

  • An even split of profits made from performance, publication, or documentation

Privacy

  • The performance, rehearsals, and development process will be recorded through video, audio, photographs, and writing. 

  • All collaborators will have the right to redact or request alteration/obscuration of their image, voice, and/or writing before any of it is made public.

  • I will not share any of your data to any third party without your permission.

Who should apply

  • Boston** Trans* Folks

  • * This project treats trans* as an umbrella term. If you do not feel aligned with the gender assigned to you at birth, you are welcome here.

  • ** This 2025 iteration of the project is funded by a Greater Boston Focused org, Collective Futures Fund, thus preference will be given to folks who can be physically present for rehearsals & performance in Boston. Folks based elsewhere are still welcome to apply & will be contacted when funding is secured for a location-flexible iteration of the project.

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