10 hour improvisation concert & Odyssey reading today!

Today’s the day for the Genetic Choir singers to sing their longest concert, yet:

Invited by Giorgos Gripeos’ installation ‘an odyssey’ and in collaboration with the International Readers of Homer, you are welcome between 12:00-22:00 today in Nieuw Dakota on the NDSM wharf in Amsterdam to witness this marathon reading & concert.

Find an audience guide for your visit by clicking here.

More information on the project is here.

If you like, you can also still become a reader by announcing your wish at the welcome desk at the entrance. You will then get a slot for later that day.

Location: Nieuw Dakota , Ms.van Riemsdijkweg 41b, 1033RC Amsterdam

Your audience guide to the Odyssey this Saturday

This Saturday, 14 July, the 10 hour concert and reading of Genetic Choir and the International Readers of Homer on the Over het Ij Festival will finally happen!

As we can imagine that not everyone wants to spend the whole ten hours with us, here a guide to some great moments in the story & music (of which there are many!):

+/- 12:00 Opening (always a great moment, with probably the most famous lines of the poem, read in ancient Greek)

+/- 13:10 Goddess Calypso is told by Zeus to give up her lover Odysseus (which she is not taking lightly).

+/- 13:30 Poseidon rages and conjures a storm that leaves Odysseus shipwrecked and lost in the ocean.

+/- 15:00 Odysseus taunts the Cyclops and is cursed to end up with his ship even further from home, thrown back and further back by a bag of winds.

+/- 16:00 Odysseus enters the underworld to meet (amongst other ghosts and dead warriors) the ghost of his mother that he longs to touch, but can’t.

+/- 17:30 How to welcome a stranger (Odysseus arrives at Eumaios house) “One must honor guests and foreigners and strangers, even those much poorer than oneself.”

+/- 19:20 Penelope and Odysseus meet again after twenty years of being separate, while Odysseus keeps playing hide and seek with her. (What a relationship!)

+/- 21:00 Penelope puts Odysseus to the test about his true identity before she accepts him again.

+/- 21:30 Odysseus slaughters all the suitors and their helpers to reclaim his house (it feels almost Klingon, if you know the reference ;-))

+/- 22:00 Last sentences of the poem + musical Epilogue by Genetic Choir, after singing for 10 hours, to sum up and close the experience of this Amsterdam Odyssey.

If you want to read yourself a 3-minute fragment, you can still give yourself up:
https://www.eventora.com/en/Events/odyssey2018

PLACE: Nieuw Dakota, Ms. van Riemsdijkweg 41b, Amsterdam

ENTRANCE: free

MORE INFO: click here

The performance is invited by and created in collaboration with Giorgos Gripeos’ installation “an odyssey”.

See you on Saturday!

We sing the Odyssey, you read!

Dear Genetic Choir fans and supporters,

a unique event is coming up, in which you are invited to participate:

On 14 July, you can join the Genetic Choir in a 10 hour concert/reading of the Odyssey, and read a piece of this epic tale, together with 200 other readers on the Over ‘t Ij festival in Amsterdam!

The Genetic Choir will instantly compose the music to this marathon reading, organised together with The International Readers of Homer and hosted by Giorgos Gripeos‘ installation “an odyssey” at Nieuw Dakota during the Over het Ij festival 2018. The performance will be streamed live to the ferries crossing the water between Westerdokdijk (Pontsteiger) and the NDSM werf.

It is a free event, you are welcome to come anytime during those 10 hours to experience it. And you are also invited to participate actively as one of the readers of this epic tale!

To be a reader of a 3 minute piece of the Odyssey, register here:

https://www.eventora.com/en/Events/odyssey2018

And if you don’t want to read, just come, listen and experience it!

Saturday, 14 July, 12:00-22:00
Location: Nieuw Dakota , Ms.van Riemsdijkweg 41b, 1033RC Amsterdam

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For the Odyssey reading, the Genetic Choir will perform 10 hours of live music, using their unique form of vocal instant composition. Reminiscent of an ancient Greek Choir, the singers comment on, foretell and mirror the events of the story, reacting to the verbal rhythm of each reader. To capture and transmit a sense of the epic length of Odysseus’ journey, the singers are a constant witness to the events and stay ‘on board’ from the first sentence to the last

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photo by Giorgos Gripeos

May ’68-inspired trash opera performance a re-sounding success

On Saturday 9 June 2018 two members of the Genetic Choir, Ralph de Rijke and Jeannette Huizinga, joined percussionists Robbert van Hulzen and Dirk Bruinsma and dancer Michael Jahoda to take part in a structured, but largely improvised opera whose lyrics were drawn from the Situationist graffiti and slogans of the May ’68 uprising in Paris. Music was played on trash items like truck springs, pickaxe heads, and metal sheets. The opera – part of MayDays, 3 evenings of art performances curated by The Warp – was held in the Kunstkapel in Amsterdam, a circular space with some challenging acoustics. 🙂 The performance was a great success, and the group plans to continue shouting, singing and banging things under the name Schroothoopera. The first such appearance will be at the Trashlesstival at De Ceuvel on Saturday 7 July 2018.

Genetic Choir on Utrecht Impro Night BUI – tonight!

Join us in Utrecht tonight for a Genetic Choir concert in double-bill with Hugo Ariëns on the June edition of

BUI (Bevordering Utrechtse Improvisatie) in the Moira, Utrecht

Tuesday, 12 June, doors open 19:30, concert starts 20:00.

The evening includes a free play session after the two sets of Genetic Choir and Hugo Ariëns.

Where?

Moira, Wolvenstraat 10, Utrecht

Collaborative Writing meets Impeded Speech meets Genetic Choir

Genetic Choir singers will perform a retake of the CIRCLE performance developed together with Cathalijne Smulders and Tamara van Scheppingen tonight at Theater Perdu in Amsterdam.

The evening is called “Weaving Practices” and showcases several writers who engaged on collaborative practices of creation.

In CIRCLE, Cathalijne explores together with the Genetic Choir the vocal and lingual realms that can be entered when engaging on poetic grounds with a performer with aphasia, a speech impediment.

See you tonight!

WEAVING PRACTICES

Friday, 1 June 2018

doors open 19:30, evening starts 20:00

Entrance: 9 € / 6 €

Theater Perdu, Kloveniersburgwal 86, Amsterdam

 

 

New Friday Morning Sessions from September 2018

In September will start a new series of eight Friday morning sessions, in a two-weekly rhythm.

A pioneer group of singers has already inscribed, so it will definitely happen! Who else is in? 🙂

We are looking for people who have done at least one Genetic Choir workshop before and who want to commit to a stable training group for this autumn.

All core aspects of Genetic Choir singing will be covered – stillness and daring, working melody, rhythm and strange sound. Engagement, availability and timing. Crystallizing your material and composing together as a swarm of singers!

If you want to join, but you haven’t done a workshop before, there is one last place available this weekend (26/27 May = click here).

If we know you already, hook on for this autumn:

FRIDAY MORNING SESSIONS of Genetic Choir work

PLACE: studio De Eester, C. van Eesterenlaan 302, Amsterdam
DATES: every second Friday morning, starting September 7th, 2018 (8 sessions)
The single dates are: 7-09 / 21-09 / 5-10 / 19-10 / 2-11 / 16-11 / 30-11 / 14-12
TIME: 10:00-12:30
COSTS: 232,32 euro for the whole block (192,- euro excl.VAT)

To reserve your place (if you have done a Genetic Choir workshop before):

1. send us an e-mail via
   workshops@genetic-choir.org with your
   – name (and account owner from where you made the payment)
   – telephone number
2. please transfer the workshop fee by clicking this payment link

For those of you planning far ahead: Friday Sessions will continue in the new year from January 18th, 2019  🙂