Improvisation and MEMORY

~ Thomas Johannsen

We don’t know if we can travel in May, but we are just going to plan and see!

The under-the-radar research festival of interdisciplinary improvisers – WhatIIIF? – is going to happen in Berlin from 13-16 May 2021, hosted by the Exploratorium Berlin. Be welcome.

Read the full invite to WhatIIIF? 2021 here.

Genetic Choir is one of the founders of this yearly gathering now in it’s fifth (!) year, organised – again – by lovely people from various disciplines of the international scene of improvisers (read here more about WhatIIIF?).

This year’s theme will be: MEMORY. We are interested in questions like:

  • “What questions, obsessions, fascinations and discomforts does the subject of memory bring to your practice as improviser?”
  • “How can we use strategies of remembering, reminding, forgetting in improvisation performance?”
  • … (–> Formulate your own research question and join us in May!)

How? And what is going to happen there? Read further here.

logo WhatIIIF 2020/2021 by Catharine Cary_latagueuseélégante

Merry Christmas with memories…

~ Thomas Johannsen

It’s been a year ago that we have given our last concert – but what a concert! For our Christmas wishes of 2020, we bring you back to the lights and warmth of (Non)Corpus: God in the Dominicuskerk Amsterdam.

Christmas Eve 2019, we also sang on NOS national Radio 1. Listen here for your Christmas podcast with Genetic Choir, or enjoy (again) a view back into the concert below.

Live concerts and singing will be back! Just hang in there a bit longer, dear people. We are looking forward to the coming year and meeting all of you again!

MERRY CHRISTMAS and a beautiful 2021 !

🎄🎄🎄💫💫💫

Genetic Choir music for Onna Musha short film

~ Thomas Johannsen ~ 1 Comment

While public performances stay difficult to organise, Genetic Choir singers are not only still creating music and meaningful moments every week with the dear old people in the Flevohuis in Amsterdam, but we are also suddenly present online, with music we created 5 years ago:

In a puppetry/dance video made by Kristien Sonnevijlle and Matt Jackson, Genetic Choir compositions from our second CD – Church Songs for the 21st Century – are featuring as a prominent ingredient to tell the non-verbal story of the warrior Onna Musha.

The film is part of the Indonesian international Puppetry festival Pesta Boneka and can still be watched until the 11th of November.

Watch below (Onna Musha starts at 42:30, and lasts 9 minutes)

or Click this direct link.

There is also afterwards a nice Q&A with Matt & Kristien and the other makers who contributed short films to Day 4 of the online version of this festival.

In the amazing festival area named “When Puppeteers Cook” we can even watch them at home making apple pie! Don’t miss that… 🙂 Go here for the Apple Pie.

Gaudeamus posts about Expandable Networked Universe of Improvisation

~ Thomas Johannsen

Next week, the Gaudemaus muziekweek 2020 is opening its (virtual) doors.

Last week, Gaudeamus posted about the WhatIIIF? initiative of bringing together improvisation practitioners from all disciplines, for which the foundation behind Genetic Choir is still in the process of gathering funds for.

An Expandable Networked Universe for the Art of Improvisation

There are many modern composers who work with improvisation, and it is lovely that we can reach out to the Gaudemaus community as well with our idea.

Find the facebook post here: https://www.facebook.com/gaudeamusnl/posts/4491288797578349


As an update for those who follow the initiative:
Our first attempts at finding funds for this project from the funding bodies we know have been unsuccessful, mainly because we imagine a knowledge gathering platform run by artists, rather than a project resulting in concrete artistic work (which most cultural funds are seeing as their core business to fund).

If you, as part of the network of Genetic Choir, know any (international) fundraising routes we could take – funding bodies that value initiatives for new forms of artistic knowledge development, sharing and artistic research – please let us know!
You can contact us via info@genetic-choir.org

And concerning Gaudemaus – the festival will be happening live and online next week and is surely worth a visit! Find the programme here.

Bijna! Van 9-13 september vindt de @Gaudeamus Muziekweek 2020 plaats in Utrecht en online! @Gaudeamusnl viert haar 75e verjaardag met live bij te wonen én te streamen concerten, interactieve werken, multidisciplinaire voorstellingen, workshops, podcasts, een seminar en een heus wandelconcert. 

Quiet now – a voice workshop on island Texel

~ Thomas Johannsen

voor Nederlands, zie beneden

Quiet now – 3 and 4 October on the island Texel
Nature – Improvisation – Solo

In the far sights on the island and surrounded by nature the experience of the body and the voice become very different from when being in the city. Time becomes a different experience. And there is silence, in thousands of ways. Wind and bird sounds are intriguingly present and at some moments it is really quiet. From the silence space and possibility arises. And then there is the voice.

On 3 and 4 October 2020 there will be a voice improvisation workshop on the island of Texel, organised by Atelier De Waal (Anet van de Elzen).
The workshop will be guided primarily by Thomas Johannsen from his practice of vocal improvisation with the Genetic Choir. Anet van de Elzen will add to this from her practice as performance artist.

We offer an experience-oriented weekend that is about ‘solo improvisation’. In order to improvise with and for others, exploring the specific state of ‘being solo’ is enormously important. This workshop is for beginners as well as for those who are more advanced in singing and improvisation. The solo element and listening to your surrounding and the other are facets that will be recurrently addressed. In this, the immensity of nature, the silence and the wind become our allies.

All RIVM measures due to covid-19 are taken into account during the workshop. This is possible because we work outside a lot and the theater space we will be using is large enough to keep 1.5 meters distance from each other.

The costs of the workshop are € 175, including coffee and tea, lunch on Saturday and brunch on Sunday. It is also possible to book an overnight stay including breakfast through Atelier De Waal (based on availability).

More information about all this on the website of Atelier de Waal.

If you have questions or would like to register for the workshop, write to Anet van Elzen via: atelierdewaal@gmail.com

Stil Nu – 3 en 4 oktober op Texel
Natuur – Improvisatie – Solo

In de vergezichten op het eiland en omringd door de natuur wordt de beleving van het lichaam en de stem heel anders dan wanneer we in de stad zijn. De tijd lijkt ook anders te worden ondergaan. En het is er stil, op wel duizend manieren. De wind en de vogels zijn aanwezig met hun geluiden, en op sommige momenten is het opeens écht helemaal stil. Uit stilte ontstaat mogelijkheid en ruimte. En dan de stem.

Op 3 en 4 oktober 2020 vindt er een stem improvisatie workshop plaats op Texel, georganiseerd door Atelier De Waal (Anet van de Elzen).
De workshop wordt voor het grootste deel gegeven door Thomas Johannsen vanuit zijn stem improvisatie praktijk met het Genetic Choir. Anet van de Elzen vult dit aan vanuit haar beroepspraktijk als performance kunstenaar.

We bieden een ervaringsgericht weekend aan dat over ‘solo improvisatie’ gaat: Om met en voor anderen te improviseren is het waardevol de specifieke staat van ‘solo gaan’ goed te hebben verkend. De workshop is zowel voor mensen die niet bekend zijn met improvisatie als voor gevorderde zangers en improvisatoren. Het solo element en het luisteren naar de omgeving en de ander, zijn facetten die steeds aan de orde zullen komen. De onmetelijkheid van de natuur, de stilte en de wind zijn daarbij onze bondgenoten.

Bij de workshop worden alle RIVM maatregelen in acht genomen. Dat is mogelijk omdat we veel buiten werken en de theaterzaal voor binnen groot genoeg is om 1,5 meter afstand te houden.

Kosten van de workshop zijn € 175,—, inclusief koffie en thee, lunch op zaterdag en brunch op zondag. Het is ook mogelijk via Atelier De Waal een overnachtingsplek inclusief ontbijt te boeken (op basis van beschikbaarheid)

Meer informatie hierover vind je op de website van Atelier de Waal.

Voor alle vragen, of om je alvast aan te melden, mail naar Anet van de Elzen via: atelierdewaal@gmail.com

photo above: Milda Lomaniené, Texel 2015

Humming Together Apart on 23 August

~ Thomas Johannsen

This is such a charming no-computer-needed collaborative singing initiative for pandemic times that we just have to spread the word! 😀

Bonnie Barnett is inviting everyone to hum together apart from wherever you are, on Sunday, 23 August at 21:00 European time! Read the invitation in Bonnie’s words below.

HUMMING TOGETHER APART #4©         
A socially-distant participatory vocal event
                                                    by BONNIE BARNETT

SUNDAY, AUGUST 23, 2020 at:
HST (Hawaii) – 9 a.m.
PDT – NoonEDT – 3 p.m.
U.K. – 8 p.m.
Europe – 9 p.m.
St. Petersburg – 10 p.m.
Australia – MONDAY at 6 a.m.

You are invited to breathe and tone from wherever you are during the performance time (starting at the listed time, and continuing for about 15 minutes). Imagine your breath and tone reaching out and mixing with other people’s breaths and tones, surrounding the planet with a sound bath of vibration.  See the earth and visualize the vibrating vocal energy buzzing us all to community and health.

18 participants wrote in after the 3rd event on June 28, 2020 and let me know their locations – from Russia to New York to Michigan to Pennsylvania to Illinois to Colorado to California… Please document your geographical location during your participation by contacting me through my website – bonniebarnettmusic.com — to help create a sound map. I really look forward to hearing from you.
And … Here is another option for any of you who are interested.  Even though this 4th event is still an ephemeral, conceptual event, if you feel like recording your sounds, you are invited to upload them as an mp3 to this folder:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1rQonZSYWg0HOLf_mvav64tC6tr7Eco8t?usp=sharing

please name your file:
(YOUR NAME)-HUM4

and remember, please upload mp3’s only, thanks!  The sounds quality of the recording doesn’t matter. You can use a zoom recorder, your laptop microphone, your cell phone… anything! Ulrich Krieger will mix the sounds that we receive…

©  Bonnie Barnett 2020
www.bonniebarnettmusic.com/



Voice Improvisation workshops starting up again!

~ Thomas Johannsen

We can sing again, yay!

–> not only outside, as we did with the Genetic Choir Ensemble in June to practice the fine art of soloing, but also again inside, in well-ventilated studio spaces.

So we fixed some dates, and you can inscribe to these upcoming workshops, if you like:

One Day workshop Genetic Choir – 6 September 2020

10:30-17:00, studio de Eester, C. van Eesterenlaan 302, Amsterdam
costs: 73 euro incl. BTW

UPDATE: The workshop on 6 September is already full!
–> if you would like to join another Genetic Choir workshop soon, please write us about your interest – workshops@genetic-choir.org – and we can see to it that another ONE-DAY WORKSHOP is organised soon enough!

Friday Morning Sessions – January-April 2021

10:00-12:30, studio de Eester, on every second Friday morning, starting in January 2021. Exact dates still to be announced.
costs: 236 euro incl. BTW for 8 morning workshops, every second Friday.

You can only inscribe to these sessions if you have done a Genetic Choir workshop before. Please let us know if you would like us to organise another Introduction Workshop before January, so you are able to join the Fridays as well! –> workshops@genetic-choir.org

If you are a regular guest, you can directly reserve your place in the Friday Morning group that starts in January, by inscribing via this payment link.

Depending on corona regulations from January, we will work in two smaller groups or one bigger group. Timing on the Fridays might change a little bit still due to this uncertainty.

You can find more info on all the workshops we give on the Genetic Choir website, here.

See you singing! 😀

WhatIIIF? 2020 goes online

~ Thomas Johannsen
What IIIF 2020 logo’s by Catharine Cary


Genetic Choir performance projects are on corona pause, but through our affiliation with the interdisciplinary WhatIIIF? improvisation network we are busy developing new initiatives with the current restrictions inspiring us (never waste a good crisis, as they say 😀 ) !

Instead of meeting physically in Berlin (the festival is postponed to May 2021), WhatIIIF? now started two distinct projects that accept the limitations due to the covid-19 situation and try to create momentum from these circumstances in their own ways:

1.
WhatIIIF? 2020 – Nowhere and Everywhere festival


How to improvise via technological tools like tele-conferencing?  What are the limitations, what are the joys of these modes of live gatherings, extending into the living spaces of so many people at once, making all those places performance spaces to be used!

Instead of waiting for the moment that physically coming together is possible again, we attempt the impossible and invite everyone to do their own performative research in the possibilities and restrictions of performing via Zoom (or other tools).


We started this in May with the interdisciplinary group of improvisers who had been planning to come to Berlin. We now want to open these performance and research sessions up to anyone out there who is interested.

We have a WhatsApp group in which we announce the online gatherings. Fixed appointment for performing together are for now Wednesdays at 14:00 hours (CEST). With an optional aftertalk/afterdraw session afterwards. Also other performance or research gatherings can be announced through the same channel.

Click here to read more and how to join the research!

2.
An Expandable Networked Universe for the Art of Improvisation


We also started gathering our network and are at the moment looking for funds to build a website as a platform and interactive library for all improvisation artists, from any country, from any discipline. We want to connect improvisation artists and audiences now that physical proximity and travelling is so much prohibited and most of us might still be sitting at home for months to come. A website to research, get inspired and connected and engage about the art of improvisation – with each other and with our audiences.

Read more about our ambitious plans here.

You are very welcome to join this network of now already 83 artists and organisations from 20 European countries who support this idea and want to be involved.

Contact thomas@genetic-choir.org if you would like to be part of this idea!

Once the project starts happening, we will post more here.

Improvising in times of Corona

~ Thomas Johannsen

dear everyone,

as you can imagine, all activities of the Genetic Choir that relate to physically being together, in training or with an audience, have been postponed at the moment.

Concretely, this means cancelling the Space Sound Bodies workshop and postponing the Friday morning sessions of March/April. Also the Huis van Lied en Geluid activities are postponed for now. We hope that in June we can start again, and that the Edge of Language workshop can happen as planned.

For May, we were involved in organising the Improvisation Festival in Berlin (WhatIIIF2020), which we will postpone to 2021 for the physical meeting, and we are thinking of creating an online improvised festival for the coming month(s). If it happens, we will let you know.

And here some more thoughts, for in the waiting state:

IMPROVISED WORLD

It is not the world’s choice, and the situation is severe, but it is also worth considering that these are big times for improvisation, from small to big : parents with their children, self-employed people, businesses, care organisations, governments, everyone is improvising – we have no choice.

Here’s the serious side of improvisation, as improvisation is, as you know from training, so much more than just being playful:
How to act and react inside a context that is completely new to us and has many unsure variables that we cannot control? How to make choices that are bold, enriching and constructive for you and your environment in order to let new structures emerge?

Governments and care organisations are improvising on the very edge of the knife, having to make decisions with incomplete data daily that effect (current or future) life and death of a lot of people. But also the rest of us is asked to improvise, find new (daily) meaning for our lives while being mainly at home, create new structures and warm experiences for ourselves and the ones that are close to us, while the times are uncertain.

MAKING MUSIC DURING CORONA

To create live music together is such a strong, life-giving force, and it seems that we will run short of it in the coming months, although there are a lot of examples that could inspire us to initiate live music in our own neighbourhood: There are the balcony/window concerts that we saw starting in Italy, there is howling together as wolves every evening at a set time (in the US). Do you know of any other nice examples of creating live music in Corona times?

Seems like these are times when you could get to know your neighbours in a different way than you would have done without this crisis, by for example asking them if they want to sing with you from their windows? 😀

As long distance (online) making live music together is concerned, things are a bit more complicated for improvisers because of the time-latency during online calls. But it is not impossible for some kinds of music at least…. Maybe there are some technology savvy improvisers who have found good ways, or will develop this now that the need is higher than usual.

For any of the above, we are curious to hear thoughts, links and inspiration from you, if you like. Get in touch by any method you know, or via: info@genetic-choir.org

Wishing everyone out there health, happiness and music in these trying times!

xxx
Thomas


Explore Space and Language in two weekend workshops in April and June

~ Thomas Johannsen

Planning is ready for two Genetic Choir weekend workshops that are coming up:

SPACE SOUND BODIES – 18/19 April 2020

Our body, the space around us and our voice in the room are all subtly interconnected: if one changes, the other two are affected. The focus of this workshop is to become specialists of this triangular relationship, to be moved and transformed by it while we instantly compose musical performances in space.

THE EDGE OF LANGUAGE – 13/14 June 2020

When we improvise with our voices, sometimes sounds emerge which are language-like, or even very much like comprehensible words. How do we treat this moment when singers are on the verge of becoming improvising poets? And also the other way around: What kind of music is hidden in existing words and texts?

Find them in our AGENDA on the new website to read more about it, and to inscribe and reserve your place.

Improvisation and Memory – inviting improvisers to WhatIIIF Berlin – 21-24 May 2020

~ Thomas Johannsen

Upcoming in May, and this time in Berlin, Germany, is the 2020 edition of WhatIIIF? – a meeting of improvisers from all disciplines interested in improvisation research.

Genetic Choir has been standing at the cradle of this festival and hosted the 2017 edition in Amsterdam, after which being involved in generating two more editions in London (UK, 2018) and in Gothenborg (SE, 2019).

Now you are invited to join us in Berlin!

21 May 2020 (13:00) – 24 May 2020 (13:00) – WhatIIIF Berlin 2020

…

IIIF stands for International Interdisciplinary Improvisation Festival and the WhatIIIF? gatherings/meetings/festivals are dedicated to attempting to answer the absurd question: Can improvisation be documented and reflected upon (and how should that be done)?

This years theme is: Improvisation and Memory

The website improvisation.wiki is a constant working space and open library of improvisation aspects. It gets energized through the yearly meetings of WhatIIIF? and everyone is invited to contribute to it through these yearly gatherings, or at any other time, from their own improvisation practice and perspective.

We invite now all interested improvisers to join us from 21-24 May 2020 in Berlin to take this utopian idea of a shared language for interdisciplinary improvisation practice further. Our hosts this year are the Exploratorium Berlin and Impro-Per-Arts.

Find the open call for participation here:

Invitation Call WhatIIIF Berlin 2020

WhatIIIF 2020 logo by Catharine Cary, photo below by Fabien Collini / performance by Constantin Leu and Catharine Cary

Happy New Melodies & more

~ Thomas Johannsen

Happy New Year and welcome in Genetic Choir’s 2020 !

We have a full year ahead, but let’s start slowly and with January only… 🙂

13 January – introduction workshop for volunteers (in Dutch) for the Huis van Lied en Geluid project in the Flevohuis, Amsterdam –> more info

18+19 January – MELODY MAKERS – a Genetic Choir weekend workshop about weaving melodies and story in improvisation singing –> more info

24 January – the spring block of Friday Morning Sessions is starting up!
You can still join, if you have done a Genetic Choir workshop before (and otherwise, you can come on 18+19 January and join as well 🙂 ) –> more info

All these things you can find on the agenda of our BRAND NEW WEBSITE!

Have a great, warm, melodious year!

Magical silences during the premiere & Genetic Choir on Radio 1 today

~ Thomas Johannsen

With anticipation, we expected our audience in the wide, dark space of the Dominicuskerk, last Sunday evening, for our premiere of (Non)Corpus: God.

Lamps came closer to us, each audience member carrying one, finding their place on the wooden floor, on red pillows and on randomly placed chairs.

What followed was an intense concert experience for both performers and audience, with a beautiful, silent intermission (with nourishment for the second half of the journey) and (the acoustics of) the church building as the most intimate companion.

It ended as well in the most refreshing, magical, held silence between singers and audience we have experienced yet. A silence in which all the music that passed by in the previous hour reverberated in the air and in the people present.

Like one audience member said to us afterwards: “I was so much in the experience after the concert, I didn’t want to leave!”

Coming Saturday, we are doing it one more time. Grab your chance for this experience and reserve:

Tickets (Non)Corpus: God – Saturday 28 december 2019 – 20:00

Christmas Eve with Genetic Choir on Radio 1

On the Dutch national news radio – NPO Radio 1 – the Genetic Choir will appear today between 16:15 and 17:00. There will be an interview with singers Jeannette Huizinga, Yanki Bicakci, Irene Rametta and Thomas Johannsen, and we will do also some instant improvising/composing in the mobile send truck of Radio 1 that will park for us near Amsterdam Central Station today (a stone throw away from the Dominicuskerk).

Talkhost Naeeda Aurangzeb will be discussing with us the (Non)Corpus: God project and the possibility of celebrating the intangible, across religious / non-religious borders (on Christmas Eve 🙂 )

UPDATE: you can listen now to the interview we gave via the Soundcloud link below.

photos: Frank Verhagen

Dutch News puts (Non)Corpus Concerts in the spotlight!

~ Thomas Johannsen

NRC Handelsblad and Radio 4 have put the upcoming premiere of (Non)Corpus: God in the spotlight with tipping the 22+28 december concerts in the NRC weekend agenda and with an interview with Thomas Johannsen last Thursday in Podium on NPO Radio 4

Click here to listen to the interview (in Dutch language), with examples of the concert’s source material.

There are still tickets for the premiere tomorrow, 22-12: click here

Or on Saturday next week, 28-12: click here

Watch the trailer of our concert here. 😀

Inside View of (Non)Corpus: God / PREMIERE this Sunday!

~ Thomas Johannsen

IMPROFIL, leading German magazine for improvising musicians, has published an article about (Non)Corpus: God, written by artistic director Thomas Johannsen in its annual edition. The article gives the reader a deeper insight into the thoughts/intentions and (work) process of this project. The article is in English. >>  Read article

You can also listen to the recent (Dutch) interview about the project that was broadcast by NPS Radio 4 here.

All the while, the premiere of (Non)Corpus: God is approaching!

This Sunday, we will fill the big and beautiful Dominicuskerk in Amsterdam with 100 moving lights, sounds from east to west, and music from deep inside and from intangibly far away.

Tickets for 22 december, 20:00 – Click here

Tickets for 28 december, 20:00 – Click here

See you there!

Singing IDENTITIES of migrants today

~ Thomas Johannsen

Premiere Identities Amsterdam,
In the context of the programVan heinde en ver, artist duo Take Twee has realized five film portraits of Amsterdammers with a migration background for Museum Perron Oost. On the occasion of the premiere, the Genetic Choir provides a musical portrait of the people portrayed. There will also be talks with the film makers and the people in the film.

Friday, 13 December 2019, 16:00-18:00
Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis (IISG), Zeeburgerkade 10, Amsterdam

Première Identities Amsterdam,
Kunstenaarsduo Take Twee heeft voor Museum Perron Oost – in het kader van het Programma Van heinde en ver – vijf filmportretten gerealiseerd van Amsterdammers met een migratieachtergrond. Ter gelegenheid van de première verzorgt verzorgt het Genetic Choir een muzikaal portret van de geportreteerden. Er zullen tevens gesprekken zijn met de filmmakers en met de mensen die in de film te zien zijn.

(Non)Corpus: God concert trailer is out!

~ Thomas Johannsen

For the upcoming concerts in the Dominicuskerk on 22 and 28 december, Peter Franken has made a second trailer for (Non)Corpus: God. Images and sound are taken from the try-out at Pakhuis de Zwiger on 20 november.

Come and see the whole concert, with special light and space concept in the big historic church by architect Kuypers on the Spuistraat in Amsterdam!

Both days at 20:00 – Dominicuskerk – Spuistraat 12a – Amsterdam

Tickets 22 december: Click here.

Tickets 28 december: Click here.

You can also go to our NEW website here for more info on the project.

30 Nov: Mystic Festival Rotterdam & Workhop in Breda

~ Thomas Johannsen

This Saturday, 30 November, you can join a Genetic Choir workshop in Breda and afterwards follow us to the Mystic Festival in Rotterdam Grounds, where we will be the final act of the evening with another teaser/try-out of the (Non)Corpus: God material (which will fully be heard in the concerts on 22+28 december).

For the workshop, send us an email on workshops@genetic-choir.org and reserve your place via the paylink here: Saturday, 30 November 2019 – 11:00-17:00
Belcrumhuis, Pastoor Pottersplein 12, 4815 BC Breda – 69 euro (incl. 21%btw)

For the Mystic Festival, you can join the festivities from 15:00 in Rotterdam Grounds, or whenever you’re ready to enter the mystic feeling. 🙂
Genetic Choir will perform late, around 22:00. Info and Tickets here.

Yesterday, (Non)Corpus at Pakhuis De Zwijger

~ Thomas Johannsen

We woke up with a warm and thankful feeling today, after the first public try-out of (Non)Corpus: God yesterday in Pakhuis de Zwijger. Thanks! speakers and audience who where there. Thanks for the beautfiul words and valuable feedback we got from you in the aftertalk. We will take them with us in our further proces towards the Dominicuskerk concerts in december.

Next stop for (Non)Corpus is the Mystic Festival in Rotterdam on 30 November.

Don’t forget to secure your tickets for 22nd and/or 28th of December. There is a cap at 200 people per concert and reservations start rolling in…  🙂