Sounding the Archive is an intimate hybrid performance-lecture inspired by the travel diaries of historian Emily Penrose during her time at the British School at Athens. Blending live reading, song, and ambient sound, the event re-enters Penrose’s diary fragments through embodied writing and first-person vocal reflection. Rather than presenting the archive as fixed history, the performance unfolds through voice, quietness, and dialogue, allowing Penrose’s impressions of Italy and Greece to meet present-day embodied experience. Field recordings and traditional Mediterranean vocal textures shape a sonic landscape where research, performance, and listening intertwine. The evening includes moments of gentle audience attunement and shared grounding, inviting participants to experience the archive not only as a document but as a living, resonant encounter.

Ilenia Cipollari is an Italian actor, singer, and researcher whose interdisciplinary practice explores the voice as an archival, embodied, and relational tool. She is currently undertaking a PhD at the University of the Arts London (Camberwell, Chelsea, Wimbledon Colleges), where her research investigates the intersections of gig theatre, post-dramatic performance, trauma-informed and body-centered methodologies, anti-colonial and anti-racist critique, and post-Marxist relational politics. Her doctoral work examines the voice as a site of memory, survival, and care — particularly in relation to sonic and archival practices. Trained in jazz vocals at the Mabellini Conservatory of Pistoia, she has worked extensively in avant-garde theatre and early music ensembles. Since 2023, she has been a member of Idrîsî Ensemble, a music collective exploring unrecorded medieval repertoires through music archaeology and postcolonial historiography. Her performance work — including collaborations with Song of the Goat Theatre and Musarc — often engages with Mediterranean vocal traditions, polyphonic chant, and poetic movement, seeking to activate historical and coastal narratives through sound and the body. She has presented work internationally, including at Yale University, LCMF, Bold Tendencies, and the Tbilisi International Theater Festival. Her research foregrounds the voice as a living, performative archive that connects artists, histories, and audiences across time and space.