We have done two energetic and inspiring sessions learning and improvising with kecak, also going in and out of the kecak rhythms and combining it with other disciplines. It turns out to be a powerful tool for group cohesion and a rhythmic way to be connected as a group. It is easy enough to learn fast, so come to the last kecak session this thursday and have a go!

After a basic kecak session we had it down pretty well, and we were able to play around with various modes (fast, slow, loud, soft, different sounds, tones, movements etc). It creates a flexible and yet stable rhythmic carpet that is strangely similar to the drone.

We improvised with both group improvisation and solo’s. For the group improv it was much more difficult to find eachother rhyhmically when we were all moving in space, but when we touched base with eachother separately while moving around it came together really well, like you would touch with your hand but now with the rhythms. After that we ‘touched’ eachother more and more quickly, untill we were able to move and stay together. At this point we were ready to also drop it completely and let the rhythms appear again from that silence.

The kecak created an interesting dynamic between group and soloïst, both with movement, text and vocal improvisation. Soundwise it creates a rhythm that can be fragmented, thinned out, or otherwise manipulated easily and both with and without a leader.

This is definately something to explore more coming thursday, moving through different layers of attention fluidly (musicality, movement, story, flocking, individual choices and voices, chorus, moving out in space and into the circle, moving in and out of the kecak all together ). It was also fun to feel the (dis)connection of movement to this ongoing rhythm.

I hope to see many of you thursday, and we will take some time to talk about the upcoming thursdays.

PS. I just lost my whole post by backspacing…Somehow this browser (firefox) interpreted this as ‘go back a page’. That is pretty upsetting.. This post is but a meager second try… :-((