Recognised for his innovative work in the fields of experimental music and live performance, Raven Chacon is an award-winning Native American composer and artist — the 2023 recipient of the prestigious MacArthur Foundation Fellowship. His work spans classical composition and the exploration of unique sounds and textures, often incorporating cultural elements and resistance. In 2022, he became the first Native American artist to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music for his work Voiceless Mass. At Batalha, we present his work Report (2015), a performance film that uses the sound of firearms of different calibres. The sonic potential of revolvers, pistols, rifles and shotguns, played by an ensemble of musicians, is transformed into a tuneful cacophony, where the bangs of gunpowder merge into choreographed rhythms. In this piece, weapons — symbols of violence, systems of justice, defence and power — become mechanisms of musical resistance.

Free entry