Peggy Baker coined the word vocalography to describe the compositional work I do with dancers. Vocalography is acoustic painting with “expanded” vocal sounds inspired by the dancers’ movements. These sounds are not the obvious sound that a dancer might make when executing a certain type of move but rather a companion or counterpoint sound to what their bodies are doing. I watch the choreography and feel musical impulses in my own being. After teaching these textural sounds to the dancers I refine compositional values – shape and balance. The felt worlds of moan and groan and shriek and shudder are held by musical form.

Fides has made 5 vocal scores for Peggy Baker Dance Projects: land/body/breath, 2014/17; locus plot, 2015 (Dora Mavor Moore nomination for composition); phase space, 2016 (Dora Mavor Moore award for composition); who we are in the dark, 2019; and her body as words, 2021 (premiere postponed from 2020). She has coached new works for dance companies Adelheid, Lua Shayenne Dance, Kaeja d’Dance, Jaberi Dance and Kemi Dance. She has directed and devised vocally with Louis Laberge-Coté (The Art of Degeneration, 2018) and Jessica Runge (Uncollected Works, 2019.) Fides has devised vocal material for Chicago theatre companies Walkabout Theatre (2019) and Erica Mott Productions (2014/15).