Voicelab2
Introduction
In 2010 Voicelab took place, the first lab that kicked off the partnership between Workspace Brussels and Sarma. Now, two years later, Myriam Van Imschoot sets up a new larger edition between 5 and 25 November 2012. Linked to her artistic interest in voice and performance, it is constructed as an open platform for exchange and encounter, for training, creation and presentation. The program consists of a workshop, lab and presentation evening Soirée Parole. All modules work with the dispositive of Handmade Radio and approach various forms of ensemble singing. Handmade radio is the name given to the ‘dispositive’ or acousmatic principle where the production and reception of sound are separated by working in two adjacent rooms. In one room the performers produce their compositions with the aid of one mono-microphone only, in the other room the listeners listen in real time to the result through speakers. We will play with this gap between the visual and auditive, production and reception, alternating between the two rooms. In its utility stripped to the essence, Handmade radio opens up an imaginary close to radiophonic art and brings to mind the old work of folley artists, but equally hosts experimental vocal composition and sound poetry. Workshop and lab are free and open to a broad range of artists interested in sound and voice. They can apply through a call for participation before 15th of October. All events will be video and sound documented. Soirée Parole opens up the residence to a public with a specially composed program, with works (a.o.) by vocalist Anne Laure Pigache and composer Alessandro Bosetti.
Program
Handmade Radio Workshop from 5 to 9 November 2012
With Anne-Laure Pigache, assisted by Jean-Baptiste Veyret-Logerias and Myriam Van Imschoot. Open to 15 participants (open call). This workshop introduces the participants to the principles of Handmade Radio, with exercises that explore distance and proximity to the microphone. Different vocal techniques, physical exploration of the vocal apparatus and rhythm, will be combined with strategies to conduct instant composition and soundscapes.
Anne-Laure Pigache: Improvisational singer and performer, Anne Laure Pigache has always started from the place of the body. From an interest in the link between gesture and voice and having had several experiences where voice and dance have been explored, she proposes a workshop where the dispositive of handmade radio is used to maximize the vocal possibilities of the body in relation with a microphone, the relation between proximity and distance, the ensemble and the individual. Different methods on how to conduct a group (sound painting), exercises to awake the voice and ear, and strategies on how to compose soundscapes and vocal work will be trained.
Jean-Baptiste Veyret-Logerias: Founding member of Sweet and Tender, Jean-Baptiste Verlayt-Logerias developed along parallel tracks a career in choral ensemble singing and in dance. In his art work he combines both of these experiences with a keen eye and ear for the movement in sound and the performative nature of singing. More :info
Handmade Radio Lab from 12 to 14 November 2012
With Alessandro Bosetti. Open to 8 participants (open call). The lab builds upon the foundations of the workshop. The focus is on the composition of vocal works that make use of the Handmade Radio set-up. Guided by composer Alessandro Bosetti the participants can develop group composition or extend ideas in depth that emerged in the first week.
Allessandro Bosetti: “Learning to compose with one microphone, one loudspeaker, two separate spaces and operating a camera obscura that works with sound. There is no recording or editing, no digital processing and alteration. No pre or post production. It all happens in real time in a hidden space. Bodies and voices are not bound to a computer, instrument or other interface of sort. They are free to move, they are invisible. Extremely light, extremely present. Handmade Radio is a collaborative lab for composers and sound creators on conceiving a handmade sound work following the rules and techniques of early radio days. Get close to the microphone. Get far away from the microphone. Feel the space. Let your feet slide softly on the floor and be silent until you are ready to place your sound. It is all mono. It all goes through a pin hole. And then spreads all over again.”
Soirée Parole 15 November 2012
Soiree Parole is a format developed by Myriam Van Imschoot to present creation of vocal and speech based work in an intimate set-up. After the first edition in Recyclart (November 2011) that presented mostly works of visual artists working with speech, this edition of Soirée Parole is dedicated to the Handmade Radio and vocal composition. Confirmed guests are Anne-Laure Pigache and Alessandro Bosetti.
Silly Singing on 13, 21 and 25 November 2012
With Myriam Van Imschoot, Willem De Wolf, Christine De Smedt, Jean-Baptiste Veyret-Logerias and Pablo Castilla. Developed by Myriam Van Imschoot
Myriam Van Imschoot: “Silly singing grew from the interest in modes of expression and how to alter them. It takes thinking and talking straight into the action of singing, and as silly as it is, we sing what comes to our minds. Of course the minds get lured into other patterns of thinking and perception, because that’s what melody and rhythm tend to do; they trick us into other alleys. The purpose is not to compose a good song (ad lib), because also the song patterns get overruled now and then by the urgency of expressing thought. Yet, also thought does not have the last word, because songs have their own ways too; sometimes they are helping the expression and sometimes they are running away with it.”
Place
The workshop and lab took place at the Pianofabriek in Brussels.
Links
An example of Handmade Radio can be found on this blog. It shows the rehearsals and filage of a group under direction of Anne-Laure Pigache and Alessandro Bossetti, in the frame of Phonurgia (17 – 20 July 2012). To be watched ideally with closing the eyes first and then look here.
YODELING TWO DAY INTENSIVE 4 and 5 December 2012 at CAMPO
With the support of WorkspaceBrussels
Yodeling is often associated with traditional folk stemming from mountain areas. Yet, as a particular singing technique that alternates quickly between head and chest voice, it appears in a much wider range of singing cultures too. Yodeling gives a foundation to explore the vocal apparatus, the musical cry, and harmonics that also have appealed to much experimental music since it proposes alternative ways of using the voice. The Yodelintensive is part of a residence of Myriam Van Imschoot at Campo, during which she prepares a series of studies on yodeling. Myriam invites her yodelteacher, the yodelqueen from Berlin Doreen Dütske to teach during the yodel intensive a large group of interested people.
Bios
Allessandro Bosetti
Alessandro Bosetti’s main focus is in the fringe area between spoken language and music. He created a series of highly compelling works where relational aesthetics meet innovative composition. Field researches, interviews and conversations often build the basis for his abstract compositions. Among them are pieces like Il Fiore della Bocca (Rossbin/DLR 2005), a work on the vocality of the mentally and physically impaired and African Feedback, a collaborative scrutiny on experimental music in West Africa (Errant Bodies press, 2004). Since 2001 he has been engaged in many major radio art productions with several public and net radios in Europe and USA, and created a vast body of work of hybrid text-sound and radio compositions. He also received commissions to compose pieces for ensembles as KNM Berlin and Die Maulwerker. Alessandro Bosetti is an emotional performer that has consistently toured in Europe, Asia and the United States. He's been presenting solo sets for voice and electronics blurring the line between electro acoustic composition, text-sound pieces, song and performance.
More info.
Anne-Laure Pigache
Anne Laure is self-educated and developed a heterogeneous artistic oeuvre thought multiple collaborations. The collective dimension is very present in her work. Today she is active as vocalist, improviser and author of sonorous poetry pieces. She has worked with voice as body and musical material since 15 years. She trains improvised music, sings in different groups that use improvised music. She composes vocal pieces while integrating graphical elements and improvisation games. Her work can be situated on the boundary between sound and sense. She is interested in the sound dimension of speech and language. Since 2008 she is touring with the poetic sonorous piece Dyslexie where she plays with the musicality of speech and language errors of journalistic texts as if these were musical or sound scripts. Her writing is mostly sound based, using repetition and deformation of words. In 2012 she started working on a typology of speech and its choral and musical potential. Since 2003 Anne Laure has collaborated with different art collectives to explore performative presence in public spaces as well as drift as exploration instrument of such spaces. The questions at stake are related to the sound of those spaces, the notion of public, the different dispositives of presence, performance or representation. To update a state of improvisation, hearing and presence in the entered space she uses the practice of dance movement and choreography.
More biographical info can be found:here.
Jean-Baptiste Veyret-Logerias
After a long practice of singing and a first experience in movement through chorus conducting, Jean-Baptiste began dancing when he was studying linguistics at the university In 2003 he was part of the vocal ensemble that won the silver medal at the national competition of Florilège Vocal de Tours International Choral Competition (FR). In 2005 he became one of the first students of the 'Essais' program at CNDC in Angers (FR), directed by Emmanuelle Huynh. Since then he has been developing his work, alongside his participation in collective works, such as Tout Court, on invitation by Tommy Noonan at Stadttheater in Freiburg (DE, 2008), and Five people at Campo in Ghent (BE, 2009) on invitation by Dirk Pauwels. He’s an active member of the international network Sweet & Tender collaborations. In 2010 he was awarded the danceWEB scholarship to take part in the ImPulsTanz festival in Vienna (AT). During Voicelab he will assist in the workshop of Anne-Laure Pigache, and be part of the Silly Singing ensemble. More :info
Myriam Van Imschoot
Myriam Van Imschoot’s interest in the voice grew increasingly from working with speech and its natural musicality. She explores various dispositives around vocal performance, alternating between pieces with a radiophonic set up and performances for public space, where longer distances are bridged through crying, yodeling or waving. Stripping language from its cognitive functions brings it to a bare communicability. Previous works encompassed various media, such as the solo performance Living Archive (2012), where she takes her own personal sound archive, collected over 30 years, as a point of departure; Black Box (2009), a sound installation in the form of a jukebox and self-made singles containing interviews and associative sounds; Oral Site (2012), a digital tool and platform developed in team with Sarma and Constant to host multimodal publications. Her work has been presented by Kaaitheater, Kunstencentrum Buda Kortrijk, Stuk (Playground), Jan van Eyck Academie, Sculpture International Rotterdam, Vooruit, Binaural Nodar, MUU Galery, etc. Currently she prepares a series of works on yodeling, in residences at Campo. She is also preparing two videos situated in the skyscraper where she is living. It’s the second time she sets-up Voicelab and Soirée Parole. In this context she will also assist workshops and conduct a mini-lab on Silly Singing. The Silly Singing came from an interest in the triangularizaiton between thinking, expression and song, merging and refracturing their logics and inclinations.
