After three kecak sessions in January we decided to add two more sessions in February. They will be on 16th Feb and 23 feb.
New people are welcome to join!

We will continue working as we did, starting with a basic kecak, where new people can join in and learn the form and we get deeper into it as a group. Then we blend in more  improvisations, both in group and solistic using any disicpline and technique that people bring in, song/movements/texts/instruments/etc. From there we move into group improvisations where all the elements can be integrated, working with tensions like expansion/contraction, rhythm/no-rhythm, individuals/group, story (or theater)/music, and so on.

It was great to see that there is already a level of ease with the kecak form that we can really work with it. This opens up a lot of possible avenues for exploration…

Moving
While sitting in a focused circle or while doing precise and coördinated movements it is pretty easy to keep the rhythms connected. It was more of a challenge when we were moving about without order. The first session we had some difficulty keeping the rhythms locked in together while moving. We tried walking on the beat to keep us together, but this is actually didn’t help at all, almost like it was distracting from the subtle sharing of the rhythms, like the feet had a denser, heavier way of matching up all the bodies… Kecak is voice and the feeling is very light and fast, like water molecules moving…
What worked very well this time was when we actually moved as atoms around eachother while making contact with our eyes and matching the rhythms with everyone we met. This faster and faster, so in the end we only took a small ‘check’ to make sure we were locked in. This gives a strong bonding and at the same time the individual freedom that is a necessary element, both for improvisation and kecak.

Here are some things that happened in the individual improvisations:
violin – interesting to explore the ‘other sound’ of solo instrument in a vocal context. Can it match with the voices? Can it float on top of the rhythm? How can a voice be ‘out’ and float on top of the group, not pulling or fighting them.
text – different interaction with the group, immediate and direct. She was telling US her story. Lots of interesting tension between words, sounds and music.
taps – can communicate rhythmically very strong, like a conductor or caller. Can also float non-rhythmically on top
dance- lovely direct energetic connection between the dancer and groupsound, with great waves.
duet- voice duet on supported by the kecak
song- very intense long song frases, with a strong identity, it was easy for the kecak to flow underneath. Created strong moments of silence, too. I think because the song feeling made it clear that the frases would follow and were connected. That gave the group trust to carry silence.

Levels
The possibility in the kecak to move between different levels of focus (on sound, on rhythm, on story, on movement), different group ‘architectures’ (flocks, circles, alone’s, subgroups), different political structures (with a leader, organically growing, anarchic), and flavours (rhythmic drones, choatic and wild, suspenseful with sudden outbursts, swelling and ebbing, strict cycles, silent and still happening)…

Text
Last sessions Jeanette brought texts from Under the Milkwood by Dylan Thomas. These enigmatic texts worked very well in this context, moving fluidly between concrete/poetic/abstract/words/sounds. It was interesting to see the resulting fluïd changes in the group improv. The text and the way Jeanette moved between her modes of performance had a strong relationship with the way the group moved too.

See you next week?!