4 Modules
HANDMADE RADIO WORKSHOP, GUIDED BY ANNE-LAURE PIGACHE
In the workshop Handmade Radio performer Anne-Laure Pigache focused on the vocal practice and techniques, using a stereophonic set of microphones for improvisations and scores. 16 participants took part.
HANDMADE RADIO LAB, GUIDED BY ALESSANDRO BOSETTI
In the handmade Radio Lab composer and vocal performer Alessandro Bosetti sharpened awareness of what frames (dispositives) can mean for material to emerge and have already a compositional aspect. An often recurring task was to first define the parameters of the set-up (darkness/lightness, steady or moving microphone, size of the room, working with memory or spontaneous improvisation) and to improvise within its contours.
SILLY SINGING, GUIDED BY MYRIAM VAN IMSCHOOT
In Silly Singing Myriam Van Imschoot takes impromptu song in the realm of thinking, pushing the borders of what can be said when singing it. For the three-day intensive she was joined by dancers Christine De Smedt, Jean-Baptiste Veyret-Logerias and actor Willem De Wolf.
YODEL INTENSIVE, GUIDED BY DOREEN KUTZKE AND MYRIAM VAN IMSCHOOT
More than a yodel crash course this two-day intensive guided by Doreen Kutzke and Myriam Van Imschoot used yodel as a vehicle to test alternative singing techniques and extreme vocal work. The group consisted of professional actors and amateur choir singers. Cardelius Cardew inspired scores and performance for the video camera (Pablo Castilla) gave a sense of compositional possibilities.
INTENTIONS
Myriam Van Imschoot
Over the years I have been creating vocal performances in public space alongside sound installations & performance that were characterized by a radiophonic bent. The latter became the major theme for Voicelab2, a platform that I devised to encourage exchange with other artists.
I invited Anne-Laure Pigache and Alessandro Bosetti to conduct a workshop and a lab on Handmade Radio, a name that refers to the minimum of technology like in the ‘old days’ of radio with an emphasis on live vocal performance. One microphone at one end of the cable, one speaker at the other end. The space of sound production is separated from the space of reception. What connects them is that one hole through which the sound is transmitted, no effects of editing. 16 artists worked in this radiophonic frame in the Pianofabriek. True to the spirit of Voicelab, it was a seedbed for collaboration, a playground for experimentation, constructed as a non-hierarchical, artist-oriented meeting.
The two other modules of Voicelab2 explored forms of singing that touch the taboo. In the lab Silly Singing, which I conducted, intimate thought processes were channeled in impromptu recitative songs. Christine De Smedt, Jean-Baptiste Veyret-Logerias and Willem De Wolf were invited to experiment together with me and sing everything that came to their minds. In the Yodel Intensive, driven by Doreen Kutzke and myself, for a group of 12 participants, the focus was on yodeling - not as genre, but as an alternative technique to use the voice in robust and shameless ways with leaps and epiglottal switches. This was also the start of a yodel project supported by Campo in a series of residences in 2012 and 2013.
The themes of radiophonic ‘dispositives’ ànd intimacy converged in one public moment, the second edition of Soirée Parole, an initiative that came to life out of a need to give room to vocal speech based art work. In a frame that I proposed, Anne-Laure Pigache and Alessandro Bosetti were the central performers; the location was a private apartment in Elsene.
One last word perhaps on Voicelab2. Although I use the words ‘workshop’ and ‘lab’ for want of more apt terminology, none of these activities seek to establish classical roles of teachers who transmit expertise in a commodified art field. On the contrary, Voicelab2 emerged from artistic concerns and the desire to share them within a spirit of exchangeability of roles and experience. In the documentation pages one can find many traces of the works that came about, none truly finished, but all budding with energy. Thank you to all who were part of Voicelab2:
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public event
Soirée Parole is a format to show speech-based works in intimate set-ups. The second edition, Two Spaces, took place in a private apartment, using radiophonic set-ups to play with sound and its reception. The audience could listen to the same set twice, once in the room of sound production, once in a room where the concert could be heard through a speaker.
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Sonic pieces, ensemble singing, from afar and close, exchange in big groups or intimate set ups. Voicelab.