A Pound of Cloth: Sweatshop Labor Comes to the Opera The Village Voice “The workers produce the soundscape of the factory floor with their mouths: clocks, humming machines, the hiss of a two-minute bathroom break, and, finally, flames and burning dust, all a cappella — without instrumental accompaniment. ‘A cappella is so much about trust and the collective effort of singing together,’ Sweat‘s composer, Juliet Palmer, tells the Voice. ‘[And this is] a story about collective action [in] a situation where your individual identity isn’t important.'” Back to Essays & Stories
