SCARYOKE!!!
An inquiry into the joy and terror of singing in public, with snacks.

Singing can be joyous. Research shows that music produces a wash of chemicals to the brain-endorphins and serotonin and dopamine-and lowers stress-related cortisol levels.

Singing can be terrifying. Reporting a New York Times Magazine story about the fertile karaoke scene in Portland, Oregon, journalist and editor Dan Kois watched several groups of friends play a game they called scaryoke: A singer gets on stage; her friends pick out a song for her; the singer, surprised, must do her best.

SCARYOKE!!! is a lot of things. It’s a six-week party: a chance for New Yorkers to sing on a Saturday night, on their lunch hour, or after a morning jog. It’s an experiment, encouraging visitors to explore the outer boundaries of their own performative instincts and capacity for risk-taking. It’s an exploration of the different modes of public and private singing, from the tune whistled in the shower to the ballad belted out in a bar after three vodka tonics. Basically, it’s a joy factory. Get in line!

John Brophy of Portland’s innovative Baby Ketten Karaoke will supply the exhibition’s songs, and will KJ the opening reception, his first-ever New York appearance. Other events will feature the pipes of New York journalists, writers, and comedians to help set the mood and encourage everyone to sing. And at exhibition’s end, we’ll screen a movie of the whole experience.

Dan Kois is a senior editor in Slate’s culture department and edits the Slate Book Review. He’s also a contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine. He was a founding editor of Vulture and has also written for New York, The New York Times, The New Yorker, the Washington Post, and the Awl. He is the author of Facing Future, a book about the late Hawaiian musician Israel Kamakawiwo’ole. He lives in Arlington, Virginia, with his family.

apexart’s exhibitions and public programs are supported in part by the Affirmation Arts Fund, Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Bloomberg Philanthropies, The Greenwich Collection Ltd., Lambent Foundation Fund of Tides Foundation, and with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and the New York State Council on the Arts.

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