When something bothers us, just being able to get it off our chest can be great.
Until recently, I did not realize that one way to do that was singing.
With Complaints Choirs, you can air your grievances, hopefully with humor rather than angst.
Harmonizing what annoys you.
The whole thing was started by Tellervo Kalleinen is a Finnish video artist and her German-born husband Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen.
According to an interview she gave to The World (December 2006), they were ‘talking about the nature of complaints how everyone makes them and no one likes to hear them‘. She then mentioned to her husband that there is ‘a Finnish word "vvalituskuoro" which literally means
complaints choir, and you use this in the situations where you feel
everybody’s just complaining. And you might say you are all like one
big complaints choir.‘
The first choir was in Birmingham (UK) where they relocated not long after this exchange.
I noticed one in Juneau where I guess they give mostly indoor recitals. and interestingly enough at Poikkilaakson Elementary School (this video).
The latest one is in Singapore where they must navigate local laws governing dos and don’t.
Have you joined this new form of expression?