WE DON’t NEED THE SEA TO DROWN

We don’t need the Sea to drown…

is an evening length work by Sxip Shirey and Coco Karol that merges live music, movement, and immersive choral architecture to explore how personal, ancestral, and ecological stories intersect in our contemporary moment.

Inspired by the words of a refugee, the piece delves into themes of displacement, resilience, and collective memory. Drawing from Karol’s movement interviews, Shirey transforms these stories into song through their acclaimed performance form, The Gauntlet, in which corridors of singers pass lyrics downstream in cascading waves of tone and harmony.

Audiences experience a living landscape of sound—voices, tuned glass, metallic bowls, and resonant found objects—creating a sonic tide that ebbs and flows around them. Drip irrigation bags become instruments of rhythmic water; each drop a pulse connecting human and environmental memory.

We Don’t Need the Sea to Drown premiered in Brooklyn, NY in June 2025, with an additional recorded performance in January 2026, and was commissioned by National Sawdust with support from the Eric and Barbara Carle Foundation. It features collaborative performances by an extraordinary ensemble of artists.

For booking information please contact LeeAnn Rossi leeann.rossi@gmail.com