FORBIDDEN SONGS by YESHE

With Forbidden Songs, Tibetan singer-songwriter and artist YESHE embodies the voice for the voiceless singers and songwriters whose songs are forbidden to sing and perform in today’s Tibet. Singers and songwriters in Tibet have been and are still being imprisoned for writing and performing these songs of identity, social justice, displacement, freedom, and hope for the future and what it means to belong.

This durational performance piece features YESHE’s solo voice joined at times by multiple Tibetan female voices to sing and repeat 10 forbidden songs. By collecting and learning these songs and being in dialogue with the singers, YESHE activates the room with her voice and a set design reminiscent of symbols of the Tibetan flag, merging the past and present, and creating an extension of their voices to tell stories beyond oppression and across time and space.

The forbidden songs are performed live in the theater and can be heard simultaneously via speakers in the spiral staircase and broadcasted on the Marina Abramović Institute’s YouTube channel.

Forbidden Songs is part of the exhibition Reimagine: Himalayan Art Now and was developed under the mentorship of the Marina Abramović Institute. YESHE took part in an in-person week-long workshop along with one-on-one sessions with Marina Abramović, a pioneer in durational performance who has long been interested in art and practices from the greater Himalayan region.

The performance is co-curated by Marina Abramović and Michelle Bennett Simorella, Director of Curatorial Administration and Collections at the Rubin.

YESHE will perform Forbidden Songs on September 8, 15, and 22.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

YESHE (she/her)

b. Baden, Switzerland; lives and works in New York and Zurich

YESHE is a Tibetan singer and artist born and raised in Switzerland, based in New York City and Zurich. YESHE performed recently live at Basel Social Club at Art Basel and the Tang Teaching Museum at Skidmore College.

Together, with the collective xenometok she developed 49 days, a multimedia music and dance performance theater piece, which premiered in 2022 at the Theaterhaus Gessnerallee in Zurich and was presented at L’Arsenic Les Urbaines in Lausanne and at the Kaaitheater in Brussels. YESHE is currently working on her debut album.

@__yeshe__ / linktr.ee/_YESHE_

Reimagine: Himalayan Art Now is supported by Bob and Lois Baylis, Barbara Bowman, Daphne Hoch Cunningham and John Cunningham, Noah P. Dorsky, Marina Abramović Institute (MAI), Mimi Gardner Gates, Fred Eychaner, Jacques and Natasha Gelman Foundation, Jack Lampl, Dan Gimbel of NEPC, LLC, Agnes Gund, New York Life, Matt and Ann Nimetz, Namita and Arun Saraf, The Prospect Hill Foundation, Eileen Caulfield Schwab, Taipei Cultural Center in New York, and UOVO.

This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council.

The Rubin Museum’s programs are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature.

This project is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.