This Friday, 7th of July, you can experience a very special performance-on-location involving Genetic Choir singers during ‘Cure Park’ in the Amsterdamse Bos!
Baden (Bathing), by Cathalijne Smulders
7 July 2017, 16:00 & 17:30
Place: close to the Amsterdamse Bostheater, on the beach (‘strandje, naast de kabelkaan’).
A map for when you are in the park is here.
The Genetic Choir collaborated before with Cathalijne Smulders in the performance CIRCLE which also was based on working with people with a speech-handicap. ‘Baden’ is a development on the same theme, now also involving movement and dance.
In Baden (Bathing), Cathalijne Smulders works with people who have difficulties with language, speech or gestures as a result of brain damage. In her performance Smulders illustrates the sense of disorientation that occurs when words lose their meaning. Speakers suffering from aphasia or spasms describe their surroundings. Their words and actions are distorted by hesitations and physical reflexes. This distorted speech subtly influences the way in which we perceive the surroundings.
The influence of impeded speech on perception is reinforced by the presence of an improv choir and dancers reacting to the speakers. They support the speakers by mirroring or slowing down their words and gestures, or alternatively, make them sound more fluent. During the performance words make way for sounds, and the emphasis shifts to more physical, sensitive and fragile forms of exchange. When words lose their meaning, a new form of exchange originates.
About the Cure Park festival:
Cure Park is a contemporary health resort that will pitch its tents this summer from June 4 to July 16 among the trees of the Amsterdam Forest. Centered around the Bostheater, Cure Park brings together over 30 artists, creatives and thinkers with audiences and care professionals in a multidimensional program, comprising installations, experiments, interventions, workshops, exercises, lectures, performances and films. www.curepark.nl
17 September 2017 One-Day Genetic Choir workshop in Amsterdam (for newbies and for refreshing your knowledge of the principles).
Flow is probably one of the most important aspects of improvising together: when there is no flow and vivid engagement in the moment, up comes thinking, doubt, trying to do it ‘right’ – all the things we need to avoid when creating music on the spot.
18 + 19 November 2017 – RHYTHM & TIME(ING)
Such a big project, such great moments!
