Ground Songing took place at Artscape, Baltimore Md, 2006.
It was performed by Jackie Milad, Ric Royer, Lauren Bender and Bonnie Jones.
Ground Songing was a popular style of prolonged harmonic chanting in the
Medieval Appalachians, wherein the performers lie face down on the
ground. This was a highly ritualistic form of community chanting that had two
primary purposes:
(1) to grieve for the dead, and (2) to honor the earth that houses the dead.
This is why it was important to direct the vocal sounds directly into
the ground. The Ground Songers believed that it was much easier for
the dead and the earth to hear them this way.
The art of Ground Songing has not been practiced in over 563 years,
after most Medieval Appalachian communities were obliterated by the
Bubonic Plague. Ironically, Ground Songing--traditionally practiced
around a community well in the center of a circular burial
ground--helped spread this plague throughout not only the Appalachian
region, but across all of the Americas and Cuba (then known as Lesser
Hungary), through obvious and unfortunate means.