Mixtape: making the sound of what you feel
16 Nov 2021

by Drew Rowsome - Photos by Aleksander Antonijevic

Mixtape is a deceptive title in terms of content but is accurate as a description of form.
 
The very word 'mixtape' is nostalgic having been supplanted by playlists. Cassettes are now a novelty used by bands and particularly rap artists, to promote their music in a format that is more a collector's item than something to be actively listened to. Mixtapes were used to collect favourite songs or to express one's feelings through a collection of songs. Hopefully the result would be a descriptive articulation of oneself, of who one is through musical choices. Mixtapes were as functional as love letters as they were as workout motivational tools. An effective mixtape would be more than hit songs strung together, they would add up to a whole, illustrating a personality or theme. Mixtape is full of hit song-esque moments but what it all adds up to is elusive.

Zorana Sadiq (Towards Youth, CHILD-ISH) is an exuberant and engaging performer with a stunning vocal ability. She strides onstage with confident self-deprecation and proceeds to charm with a stand-up routine on the joys and flaws of cassettes. And mixtapes. It is diverting and she has a great time interacting with the audience who very quickly adores her. She also has an offhand manner with a one-liner or a quip, landing laughs with easy aplomb, while also dispensing thematic clues: "Music is when grown-ups get to make the sounds of their feelings." 

Sadiq guides the audience through her musical misadventures and training. Her studies are wittily and emotionally summarized. A set of scales and how it feels in one's core to solve the mystery of physically vocalizing is powerful material. Surprisingly so are her forays into music appreciation. It is lecture as entertainment, and if Sadiq wanted to be a professor, she would have rapt classes. Her explanation and demonstration of how technique is necessary to achieve emotional honesty is fascinating and incisive. As is her struggle to reconcile the two necessities of great singing, she is emotionally blocked so her singing is cold.

Then she drops the first of many "I should mention . . ." segues. Estrangement from her mother, her parents' unhappiness and eventual divorce, her musical heritage as the child of immigrants, and a finally a pregnancy. All of which are rich, fertile material, all of which are skimmed over and not connected to a narrative thrust that is now in shambles except for chronology. We want to know what happened between her and her mother, especially as the mother, as Sadiq incarnates her, is a comic monstre sacré who appeals more than repels. How did it feel to connect with the music of her culture after living what appears to be a privileged upper middle class Canadianized life? Is that the source of the conflict with her mother? It is hinted that it is, but never explored. She blithely states that she can't sing the microtones necessary for devotional music but no mention of whether she tried or what it meant to her. 

The pregnancy is used to tie everything loosely together, referencing the central metaphors of heartbeat rhythms, whale songs, attempting perfection, and, of all things, firing squads. It is a brave attempt and we so besotted with Sadiq by this point that the majority of us let it slide. If a mixtape contains a lot of great songs that moved us to laughter, does it matter that it doesn't add up to a whole? Yes, Sadiq's experiences matter and while she makes us feel her emotions, they aren't transformed into a universal reference except in fragments as they relate to individuals in the audience. A ruthless dramaturge would turn Mixtape into a powerful piece of theatre. But maybe being the accompaniment to a theatrical workout is enough.

It will be fascinating to see how Mixtape evolves. Sadiq erases the fourth wall and conversationally she exclaims that not only is it so exciting to be in a theatre again, but that the laughter and spontaneous applause is throwing off her rhythms. Personally, her demonstrations of struggling with technique, imitating Streisand, singing Sondheim, blissing out to her favourite composer who embraces chaos, and her delight in a particularly apt zinger, is enough to justify a night in a theatre. Mixtapes are malleable, Sadiq even explains how cassettes bleed through so that the original running order never really disappears, and how Sadiq rearranges and changes the emphasis of individual elements will become a Mixtape that reveals herself by "making the sound of what you feel."