Let’s raise the tone 2

 

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Last thursday, sep 1, we (Esmeralda, Maria, Natanja) went quite loud.

It was uncomfortable, liberating, tiring, funny, surprising…

We started by trying to define loudness in a performative space, outside the sense of hearing to which it first of all ‘belongs’. What is loud with a silent body, what is a loud space?

Loud: a higher than average:

  • Muscular tension
  • Speed (but we perceived slow with a high tension also as loud)
  • Volume
  • Expression
  • Use of space
  • Repetition
  • Unfocussed energy
  • Chattering (filling time/space without pause)

Loudness can obviously not exist without its counterpart and a build-up. It was easy to create loudness through opposition, but it was more interesting to create it through collaboration. We investigated the loudness of clichés: circus, argument, showballet, clowning.

Coming thursday, september 8, we continue with this theme and it would be so great to be numerous!

So pack your instruments and dancing pants, oil your throats and come play!

Thursday september 8, 13 -17 hrs, Studio Vredenburg, Vredenburgersteeg 31-35, Amsterdam.

Costs: contribution towards rent between € 5 and € 10, or seasonal contribution € 50.

Please comment below to announce your presence at the session!

More practical info on: https://instantcomposition.com/cc-detailed/

Let’s raise the tone

As I wrote in june, I am proposing two sessions on playing in the higher end of the loudness spectrum. More muscle-tone, more volume, louder voices. What does that give the composition, can it make it richer, funnier, more complicated? Will conflict automatically arise or are we, polite people in general, harmoniously loud? Is it pleasant to be loud or when a co-player is and what are instinctive, cultural, personal reactions to a raised? What play, what vocabulary comes out in that end of our spectrum? Is it liberating or oppressive?

In my culture which was reflected strongly in my upbringing by parents who loved to  blend in loudness was not appreciated. In dance I’ve long had a love for tension, complication, knowing where I am by feeling muscles. Compensation behavior could be an all too easy explanation, there might be more to the game than that.

I come to the facilitation of these afternoons with curiosity and an intense desire to play.

Practically, I propose a rather open playing and investigating carpet: warming-up, sharing thoughts and ideas around the theme, an open improvisation and from what comes out of that: making pieces and watching pieces being made.

Hope to see you thursday!

 

Practicalities:

Thursday september 1 & 8, 13 -17 hrs, Studio Vredenburg, Vredenburgersteeg 31-35, Amsterdam.

Costs: contribution towards rent between € 5 and € 10, or seasonal contribution € 50.

Please comment below to announce your presence at the session!

More practical info on: https://instantcomposition.com/cc-detailed/

September 1 and 8: Lets raise the tone

Hi all,

today we closed the carpet year with a nice session with many different frames for playing.

The summer awaits and after the summer another season on the carpet lies wide open. On september 1 and 8 I propose two afternoons on working on the higher tone end of our spectrum. Being loud, working with physical tension and also with conflict.

I am interested in this since I tend to be quite harmonious (not strange conflict was a no-go in my upbringing…) but I do very much like working with higher shades of muscle tone and what colour that can bring into the work.

So I propose to let the reins loose some and see what we come up with. Closer towards the date I will write a slightly longer proposition. If anyone is interested in co-hosting please contact me.

Have a great summer!!

Natanja

Just here, just now, just doing it.

 

Hi all, for september 3rd I propose a session on not very much at all and a lot at the same time.

Lately I have been inspired by and through ‘simply’ going into a space and ‘doing it’, practising improvisation over many hours on end. I notice that when I do this, the fact of staying with it and moving through everything that goes on without talking, or leaving or making sense or naming etc. the work changes in a way that I find fascinating at the moment.

I’ve been practising this way with other dancers and am curious to extend it to the other performance-arts in our midst. What happens when we all live in the same space for a few hours? How do we make sense without setting rules or scores? How do we navigate through moods, through solo and ensemble?

I propose a very simple structure: two hours of ‘open’ improvisation and two hours of making pieces. During the first two hours we will work without the audience/performer relationship, watching will be more coïncidental and have a quality of witnessing. The last two hours we’ll work with an audience and performers and a shift of focus to more emphasis on composition and collaboration. How we do this we can decide together, or I can propose a simple structure.

A way to support the open time can be to formulate a personal research question or theme, to create like an inner frame for working.

Hope to see you there. Natanja

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