From today’s ES magazine (text: Frankie McCoy; photo Dima Hohlov; styling Nick Royal). With beauties Sophia Brown, Yen-Ching Lin and Mariya Mizuno
Helen Noir, Performer
Noir remembers hearing Allegri’s Miserere at the age of five ‘and being totally transported. Actually, I remember thinking it would be good music for a death scene. I was a very dramatic child.’ Having grown up in Tasmania, the 42-year-old classically trained singer now lives in Stoke Newington and met Adams when she was ‘singing Purcell and crying red tears’ at Camden People’s Theatre with melodramatic camp performer Scottee’s Eat Your Heart Out collective. He asked her to fly to Tokyo to perform at that Louis Vuitton party and she immediately said yes. Besides singing and dancing for Adams, she’s also an electronic music producer, composing live original soundtracks (performed at cult Hoxton club The Glory), for films such as Eyes of Laura Mars and Daughters of Darkness (she describes her style as ‘lots of looped opera vocals, Eighties reverb guitar and techno’). All of which is a far cry from her nine-to-five job as a PA at a law firm, but then, ‘most of what we do in the Theo Adams Company feels very natural to me — I find I have more surreal moments at my corporate day job.’
How do you prepare for shows?
‘Often right before I go on I can’t remember any of the show or any of my technique, but I’ve learnt to trust that moment as it usually means I’m ready.’