Hysteria: a guest post
Delighted to give the floor today to the BAFTA-award winning composer Jocelyn Pook , who tells us about Hysteria: A Song Cycle for Singer and Psychiatrist which premieres this Saturday 14 July at 7.30pm at Hoxton Hall ( tickets here ). Fasten your seatbelt: this is strong stuff. Jocelyn Pook Photo: Zoran S Pejic I am fascinated by the power of the mind, the power of thought and the power of emotion to trigger a chemical reaction in the body. It is a point where the unconscious takes over and the body reacts of its own volition with a physical symptom. So when the Wellcome Trust asked 10 artists including me to respond to the subject of Hysteria and psychosomatic disorders, it sparked 2 years of research resulting in the premiere this Saturday of my new work Hysteria: A Song Cycle for Singer and Psychiatrist . Our brief from the Wellcome Trust was to pair up with a medical professional and I was lucky to work with the French psychiatrist Dr Stephanie Courta...