Sonic Performativity
Paula Montecinos Oliva
Transdisciplinary artist and researcher from Chile currently based in Amsterdam.
Paula Montecinos Oliva (CL) is an artist, researcher, and educator based in the Netherlands. With a background in choreography, somatics, and sound art, her practice explores the sonic body at the intersections of agency, memory, and collectivity. Rooted in movement-based listening practices, her work extends into live electronics, experimental vocal practices, sonic choreography, storytelling, and radio broadcasting, engaging in the creation of handcrafted sonic environments. Through antennas, synthesizers, microphones, and speaker-instruments, she creates conditions for experimental encounters between audiences, materials, and a plurality of human and more-than-human bodies, approaching these relations as vibrational architectures that shape spatial and temporal experience.
In recent years, Paula has explored listening as an emancipatory and relational practice through her long-term radiophonic project Sonic Feminist Fabulations (SFF) and the collective research platform Somatic Laboratory – Latinx Memories. Moving across sonic experimentation, embodied research, and archival practices, these projects challenge colonial narratives while cultivating collective ways of sensing, remembering, and knowing.
Her work has been presented at Uncloud (NL), PACT Zollverein (DE), Listening Biennale (DE), WORM (NL), Sonic Matter (CH), FLAM (NL), transmediale (DE), Sonic Acts – Night Air (NL), IDlab (NL), Haus der Kulturen der Welt (DE), Q-O2 (BE), ICK (NL), Festival Asimtria (PE), Come Together #4 (NL), Julidans (NL), Danzalborde (CL), Centro Cultural de España (CL), Parque Metropolitano (CL), and Spektrum (DE), among others.
For public engagements, collaborations, and commissions, please get in touch
sofrinna@gmail.com
Recent and upcoming
2026 Live electronics performance at Festival Uncloud breaking the binary, Utrecht, NL.
2026 Sonic Feminist Fabulations Ep.03 Acoustic Justice, Acoustic Care Festival, Berlin.
2026 Sonic Feminist Fabulations: Ep.02 Atelier 72 at Pact Zollverein Essen, Germany.
2025 Sonic Feminist Fabulations at OnAir - OnSite Festival, Institute of Sonology Den Hague.
2025-26 Guest teacher in LAB3 Artistic Research, Dance and context program at Fontys University.
2025-26 Seminar Tutor at DAS Choreography Master program in Academy of Theater and Dance, AHK, NL.
2025 Participant at Sound Arguments laboratory-atelier for creative artists and researchers at Orpheus Instituut and Leiden University. BE/NL
2024
- December 13th : Radio show & publication Sonic Feminist Fabulation (SFF), in the frame of Breaking the Algorithm Program at WORM Rotterdam.
- October - November 29.10/02.11 : Sonic Feminist Fabulation as part of WHISPERING SKINS FLAM+Museumnacht 2024
- 19th October: THIRD annual Forum at DAS Graduate School.
- July: Process sharing of When the far Becomes the Near. Research Interrupted. BAK Fellowship for Situated Practice, Utrecht.
2023
- November: Studio showing UNBOUND Sonic-spatial Performance. IDlab - Poetic laboratory for digital technologies.
— October: Guest Speaker at the The Hacked Orchestra @ Muziekgebouw aan 't Ij
— October: Sound composition for theather piece WUNDER directed by Juan Miranda. in Co-production with Sala Beckett (Barcelona) Schauspielhaus ( Vienna)
— August ~ September: Research esidency of project SONIC FABULATIVE FEMINISM. program at Transmediale, Berlin. Silent Green.
— Somatic Laboratory Trans*latinx Memories. ATD Amsterdam.
— August: UNBOUND at SUBURBIA Garage Noord, Amsterdam.
— Sound dramaturgy and sound installation FOAMS Mario Lopes. Students ECD, ATD Amsterdam.
— February: Sound performance AFROTRANSTOPIA, by Mario Lopes at Come Together#9, Frascati Theater.
—January: Lauching of the Fanzine Acuerpadxs. Part of the project Somatic Lab. Trans*latinx Memories.
2022
—December: Residency UNBOUND at WpZimmer. Antwerp
—December: Premiere DAS GIFT. Directed by Juan Miranda. Shauspiel – Staatstheater Hannover.
—November: Sonic intervention RED FOREST RADIOGRAM. In the frame of NOMADIC COSMOLOGIES AND FUGITIVE POWER.
—November: Forthcoming (Not Yet Here But Always Been There). A sonic collaboration with Devika Chotoe and Anne Jesuina. In responds to Patricia Kaersenhout’s exhibition in CBK.
—November: UNBOUND sonic performance at The Artist are Present Festival. ICK Dans Amsterdam
— September: THUNDER AND LIGHTING. A Conversation with Eduardo Molinari for Whole Life Repository, HKW, Berlin.
—July: UNBOUND sonic performance at Blob Together @Club PRTS. Vienna.
—June: Workshop (Un)bound Sounds. #FERALIZING New Alphabet School. Warsaw
—May: Sonic reading of Champurrias. For South Boom Boom magazine. Especial edition in Performance Philosophy Journal.
—May: ‘Kuir Sudaka Migrant Landscapes’ Talk and video featuring IPOP by DAS Research and ATD Amsterdam
—April: Residency In Transit: Ihlas _ a Constellation. Walking, Landscape and Natural Reserve. Madeira PL. Curated by Sara Anjo.
—March. Revolvə Site-specific sonic performance at The Whole Life Congress. Archives and Imaginaries. Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin. Curated by Megan Hoetger.
—March: N/pantla with Devika Chotoe and Pedro Matias at Frascati Theater. Dolce Revoel SNDO graduation.
—March: Q-02 Residency. Workspace for experimental music and sound art. Brussels, Belgium.
—February: Residency Het Huis Utrecht. Netherlands. N/pantla by Paula Montecinos, Pedro Matias and Devika Chotoe.
2021
—November: Radio Silence Host– ICA London and DAS Graduate School, Amsterdam – How to think Symposium.
—November: N/pantla by Paula Montecinos and Pedro Matias at Sonic Acts venue, Night Air: Shock Waves, in OT301. Amsterdam.
—August: N/pantla by Paula Montecinos and Pedro Matias at Laurel Space Project.
—July: Silent Waves @ Various public spaces, Amsterdam. Public dance performance. Funding by Fonds Podiumkunsten.
—July: Walks of Arts Against Isolation, @ Various public spaces, Amsterdam Performed a 1-1 proposal in public space in Amsterdam. Funding by Fonds Podiumkunsten.
2019
— In The Drop Sonic choreography. MA Graduation project, presented at DAS Graduate School. Amsterdam. Netherlands
— STAMIRA[2026] Choreography and sound performance, 2020. Collaboration with Karina Villafán. Premiere at Julidans Festival, Brakke Grond Flemish Cultural Center. Amsterdam. Netherlands.
— June: Workshop. ON READING AND TRANSDUCING. Organized by GHOST Study Group No. 6 and Tender Center, Rotterdam.
— May: Las Cuatro Orillas soundwork, Festival Asimtria 16. PUMPUMYACHKAN Audiovisual and Sound Festival. Cusco, Perú.
— March: Archipielago Sonic choreography. Perform at Festival Come Together#5. Frascati Theater. Amsterdam, Netherlands.
— LISTENING THROUGH THE NOISE Live broadcast concert. Symposium Music Pours Over the Senses. Music department, University of Graz. Austria.
— ELEMENTARY CHARGE, Directed by visual artist Mette Sterre and presented at 20th year anniversary of TENT Rotterdam. Support by Stimuleringsfonds Creatieve Industrie and Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds