The Los Angeles-based singer known as MILCK knew she wanted to do something memorable for the Women's March in Washington, D.C on Saturday. So she contacted a small group of other singers from across the country to coordinate a flash mob performance of MILCK's song "Quiet," an emotional rallying cry for self-empowerment and unity. The group of women rehearsed together via Skype and rendezvoused in D.C., where they performed a cappella versions of "Quiet" several times during the march.
Israeli director Alma Har'el captured part of one of the performances and posted it to her Twitter account and Facebook page, where it's accrued more than 8 million views.
The performance is unadorned and profoundly moving, capturing at least part of the mood that settled on the march, with a balance of defiance and love.
MILCK says she wrote the song as a way of exorcising her own history of physical and sexual abuse. "With this song, I feel like I'm finally allowing my truest inner self to be expressed," she said in a prepared statement announcing the song, which was officially released days before the weekend marches. "In this time of fear, propaganda and discrimination, it is critical for our individual and collective voices to be heard. With this song, I'm saying I am NOT the woman who is going to stay quiet where there are figures who promote oppression. I want to encourage others to give a voice to whatever they may have silenced, political or personal."
Here's the official studio version of "Quiet."
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