A workshop: sensing listening sounding : sensing listening moving

20^th May 4 – 7pm

Canolfan Byd Bychan, Aberteifi

Small World Centre, Cardigan

£10 (£8 concessions)

A workshop from two collaborating artists: movement practitioner/visual artist Maura Hazelden, and singer/sonic artist Lou Laurens.

The workshop is an invitation to explore some of the themes of their annual work untitled: holy hiatus which will be on Tuesday 22^nd May.

The workshop participants can focus on either voice, or body. After 2 hours of working separately, we will all come together for a final sharing.

FOLLOW THIS LINK TO BOOK THE WORKSHOP

Lou on the sounding workshop

I have evolved a practice based on deepening audience/performer awareness of the relationships between the singer, the song, the time and the space in which one sings.

Silence, listening practices and meditations, ritual, repetition and music, have all been used across many cultures and ages to generate ‘holy’, or spiritual, experience. In the workshop we will explore the singing body and the listening body; allowing the possibility of transformation; giving our breath, and our time, to this end. We will look at ways of listening that encourage the voice, or voices, to emerge: listening through sounding. All kinds of voices are welcome to participate in this workshop.

We will work with one song, attending to the ways in which we experience song and silence, and the small unintentional improvisations that emerge through listening to body, space, and each other.

Maura on the moving workshop:

The somatic experience is often ignored in prayer & contemplation. Yet just considering the Christian church you see movement entering into the spiritual/worship experience. The Shakers gained their name through the phrase “shaking Quakers”. Within the Society of Friends/Quakers there is talk of the physical sensation that precedes giving ministry, but the ministry is then verbal. I want to see how prayer is lived in the body.

In untitled: holy hiatus 2, I set aside a space that I could use for an immediate expression of prayer – a move away from repetition and stillness. It was by this method that I had created the original phrase of movement over several months. 

The workshop is aimed at people who have a curiosity to investigate the body/movement in prayer/contemplation/meditation. You may already use yoga or forms of dance, but no experience is necessary. We will explore moving intuitively, mindful of the moment. As the work shop progresses, you will create a small phrase of movement that you are comfortable repeating.  During the last section of the workshop you will have the opportunity to use this phrase and/or move intuitively.

 Maura and Lou:

We have discussed our collaborative performance in terms of ‘reverence’. A reverence for what is. At the end of a ballet lesson dancer & teacher perform a reverence (in French this refers to a curtsy or bow): it is a thank you, a moment of respect. And reverence also means: a feeling of profound awe and respect and often love; veneration; an act showing respect. It is devotional.  

Please wear loose comfortable clothing. A cushion and blanket may also prove useful

Lou Laurens has an MA in Sonic Art. She trained as a singer, and developed her vocal practice with leading teachers and performers, many within the arena of post-dramatic theatre; she also trained in Deep Listening techniques with Pauline Oliveros. Her practice includes solo and collaborative vocal performance, composition, and curation/facilitation. She teaches voice and leads community choirs. Her work explores relationships and encounters between individuals, communities, languages, and places.

Maura Hazelden had an early training in ballet. After moving into the visual arts due to physical difficulties she spent 5 years “untraining” her body working with improvisational techniques. Working with non-dancers, mixed levels of experience and performance artists she has built up a personal approach to preparing the body for movement that allows both a warm up and body awareness. Movement has become both a public and a private act for Maura: a creative tool, a form of therapy for body & mind, and a devotional form.

Maura has also trained in design and fine art working with drawing, the photovisual, installation and performance. Her current area of interest is investigating how language might express bodily experience.