Play As We Are aims at collecting together practitioners who are passionate about the connection of movement and sound, to share knowledge, exchange practices and develop as a movement.
We have gathered some fascinating people for the coming SUMMER RETREAT.
ASDIS VALDIMARSDOTTIR (IS, NL) - Body Mapping
RUTH PHILIPS (UK, FR)- The Breathing Bow
ERIK WINKELMANN (NL, DE)- Breath through Feldenkrais technique
JENNY MILLER (UK) - Responsive Breath, Movement and Sound
MANUELA TESSI (IT, NL) - Spirals, Sound and Space
IRENE SOROZÁBAL (SP, NL) - expression through 'Reflex Voice'
PETER JACQUEMYN AND SOFIA KAKOURI (BL, GR) - Double-bass and dance
We have gathered some fascinating people for the coming SUMMER RETREAT.
ASDIS VALDIMARSDOTTIR (IS, NL) - Body Mapping
RUTH PHILIPS (UK, FR)- The Breathing Bow
ERIK WINKELMANN (NL, DE)- Breath through Feldenkrais technique
JENNY MILLER (UK) - Responsive Breath, Movement and Sound
MANUELA TESSI (IT, NL) - Spirals, Sound and Space
IRENE SOROZÁBAL (SP, NL) - expression through 'Reflex Voice'
PETER JACQUEMYN AND SOFIA KAKOURI (BL, GR) - Double-bass and dance
Asdis Valdimarsdottir
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Body Mapping - we each have a personal "map" of how we percieve our own body. Asdis will explore how we can improve and develop this to make our movements more fluid and organic. Asdis is a renowned viola player and teacher and is currently professor of viola and chamber music at the Royal Conservatory The Hague.
Ásdís Valdimarsdóttir comes from Reykjavík, Iceland. She enjoys a varied career as a violist and teacher, has been a member of several wonderful ensembles; most notably as principal viola of the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen and the violist of the Miami, Chilingirian and Utrecht string quartets. Recently she made two CD’s with the pianist Marcel Worms for Zefir Records with works by Shostakovich, Weinberg and others. With the Brunsvik String Trio she recorded the complete String Trios by Beethoven for his 250th birthday. Her most recent CD is titled ‘Stolen Schubert’, with her own arrangements of his works for viola. Her arrangement of Telemann’s Gamba Fantasias for viola will be published in 2023. Ásdís is currently professor of viola and chamber music at the Royal Conservatory The Hague. Asdis is a qualified teacher of Body Mapping- a method for addressing playing related injuries. |
Ruth PhilLips
The Breathing Bow - Ruth Phillips ia a modern and baroque cellist, a mindfulness coach, founder of the Breathing Bow, co-founder of InsideOut Musician and a writer.
Ruth Phillips is a baroque and modern cellist having played for years with such orchestras as The Chamber Orchestra of Europe and the Concert d'Astree. In addition to her career as a performer, Ruth is a qualified mindfulness meditation teacher, having been trained by Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield, and a yoga practitioner. With a particular interest in breath, presence and ease of movement, Ruth is committed to musicians’ wellbeing and over the last ten years has given workshops Internationally, including at the Royal Northern College of Music, the Royal Glasgow Conservatoire and for the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, the European String Teachers’Association and the London Cello Society. She is the resident mindfulness coach at the Verbier Festival and her clients include students and graduates from Stony Brook University, Julliard School, Royal Academy of Music, Paris Conservatoire, Royal Northern College of Music and the Guildhall School of Music, and members of the Hallé, Oakland Symphony, San Fransisco Opera, Liverpool Philharmonic and Philharmonia Orchestras. |
Erik Winkelmann
Erik Winkelmann, solo bass-player at the Metropole Orkest for more 25 years.
His Feldenkrais-practice incorporates more then 30 years of Kung Fu and TaiChi as well as QiGong About Erik's class: We will research our breath in different ways: through sensing, understanding and using it. Breath is fascinating, as it is the one direct connection between our brain and body that we can use consciously at any moment. You will learn to sense your breath in your body and the physiology ( and a bit of chemistry ) of breathing, but also a couple of highly effective ways to modulate your nervous system through different ways of breathing. |
Jenny Miller
Jenny's career as a classical opera singer has spanned thirty years, including solo work with all the main English houses and many smaller companies. Her passionate quest to find a methodology of voice/body/movement that integrates the demand for a classical vocal instrument with a moving, expressive body has led to her formation of Barefoot Opera, and over a decade of work with small group of colleagues, including Alexandra Baybutt.
Responsive Breath, Movement and Sound In "Play as we are" Jenny will offer breath, movement and voice exercises that aim to shift our sense of gravity, shake up our habitual breath patterns, and open our sound. She will also be keen to work with improvisation in sound and movement, offering a series of simple musical formats and texts as starting points for exploration |
Manuela tessi
Spirals, Sound and Space
In this workshop I will share with the participants some of the elements that I have been working on in the creation of Maelstrom, the latest composition for Moving Strings ensemble members. The work departs from the spiral form as it relates to the body and space, suggesting choreographic and musical structures. The spiral recurs often in nature because of its efficiency. At the same time it is a very beautiful structure. When form and function merge with such grace I believe there is a lot to learn and share which has a profound resonance. Conceptually and physically, spirals subvert hierarchy. Polarisation between up/down, front/back, right/left is destabilised by the spiral form.
Spiral pathways are naturally present in the human body. The spiral has the potential to collect force and release it, winding and unwinding, ascending and descending, creating disorientation and momentum.
In this workshop I will share with the participants some of the elements that I have been working on in the creation of Maelstrom, the latest composition for Moving Strings ensemble members. The work departs from the spiral form as it relates to the body and space, suggesting choreographic and musical structures. The spiral recurs often in nature because of its efficiency. At the same time it is a very beautiful structure. When form and function merge with such grace I believe there is a lot to learn and share which has a profound resonance. Conceptually and physically, spirals subvert hierarchy. Polarisation between up/down, front/back, right/left is destabilised by the spiral form.
Spiral pathways are naturally present in the human body. The spiral has the potential to collect force and release it, winding and unwinding, ascending and descending, creating disorientation and momentum.
Manuela Lucia Tessi is an independent dance artist whose speciality is movement research and composition as it relates to (live) music. She completed her dance studies at the Modern Theatre Dance department at the AHK in Amsterdam.
Originally from Italy, she has spent the last 20 years in the Netherlands , and most recently she started working more regularly in Berlin and Cape Town where she creates, performs and co curates platforms that foster the interdisciplinary collaboration of music and dance in performance.
Irene Sorozábal
Reflex Voice
What is emotional expression? How can we explore our emotions as performers? What do emotions do to our breath, posture, gaze and more?
Expression in music and other performing arts is a complicated notion. As a singer and recorder player, I did not find enough systematic approaches to it during my studies so I developed my own approach which uses the physicality of emotions as a starting point and an automatic way of producing voice: Reflex voice.
Irene is a Spanish recorder player and singer based in Amsterdam. She performs a variety of music ranging from medieval to contemporary Classical Music as well as improvised and original music. She has performed in festivals like Gaudeamus Muziekweek, Amsterdam Fringe Festival, Oude Muziek Utrecht, OdeGant and Zürcher Theater Spektakel. Since 2021, Irene regularly sings with Cappella Amsterdam and plays with The Royal Wind Music. Besides performing with these ensembles, Irene collaborates with theatre makers and choreographers as a performer, creator, singer and composer. Furthermore Irene integrates interdisciplinary performance not only in her own work but also as a curator: her series Encuentros has been funded by Balkonscènes Fonds Podium Kunsten and Amsterdam Fonds voor de Kunst. In 2014, Irene moved to the Netherlands to study recorder with Erik Bosgraaf and historical singing with Xenia Meijer at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam.
What is emotional expression? How can we explore our emotions as performers? What do emotions do to our breath, posture, gaze and more?
Expression in music and other performing arts is a complicated notion. As a singer and recorder player, I did not find enough systematic approaches to it during my studies so I developed my own approach which uses the physicality of emotions as a starting point and an automatic way of producing voice: Reflex voice.
Irene is a Spanish recorder player and singer based in Amsterdam. She performs a variety of music ranging from medieval to contemporary Classical Music as well as improvised and original music. She has performed in festivals like Gaudeamus Muziekweek, Amsterdam Fringe Festival, Oude Muziek Utrecht, OdeGant and Zürcher Theater Spektakel. Since 2021, Irene regularly sings with Cappella Amsterdam and plays with The Royal Wind Music. Besides performing with these ensembles, Irene collaborates with theatre makers and choreographers as a performer, creator, singer and composer. Furthermore Irene integrates interdisciplinary performance not only in her own work but also as a curator: her series Encuentros has been funded by Balkonscènes Fonds Podium Kunsten and Amsterdam Fonds voor de Kunst. In 2014, Irene moved to the Netherlands to study recorder with Erik Bosgraaf and historical singing with Xenia Meijer at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam.