Social Practice: Singing School

Singing School was a six-week social practice art series facilitated by Liam Whitworth and taught by Portland Opera singer and multidisciplinary performer Onry H. Hosted weekly at Deep Waters studio, the program invited participants to explore collective voicework as a form of healing and reconnection. Attendance was free and open to the public. Each session emphasized community, embodiment, and the rediscovery of joy through singing together after years of pandemic-era isolation.

The project sought to transform vocal practice into a medium for collective repair. Drawing from traditions of communal song, somatic healing, and queer performance, Singing School treated the act of singing not as entertainment but as ritual and restoration. The series asked how a group of strangers might breathe together, attune to one another’s resonance, and create temporary harmony as a form of mutual regulation.

Participants gathered in a modest upstairs studio in Lower Albina. Each session began with grounding exercises in breath and posture, followed by playful explorations of tone, vowel, and vibration. Onry guided participants in connecting the voice to the body’s energy centers, with particular attention to the throat and heart. Gradually, individuals who began the series shy or hesitant grew into full, unguarded vocal expression. 

Singing School succeeded as a work of social practice art. It reimagined performance as participatory care, replacing spectacle with shared process. Participants described feeling “open,” “lighter,” and “less alone.” Several returned week after week, forming an informal collective that continued to meet after the series ended.
​
As an artistic experiment, Singing School demonstrated that creative acts can operate as public health interventions. In the wake of COVID-19, it offered an embodied space for processing collective PTSD and rekindling communal joy. The project advanced Future Prairie’s mission to center working-class queer artists in civic healing work, while deepening Deep Waters’ identity as a site for art that nurtures rather than extracts. We hope to host more events that build community resilience through shared practice.