improvisation – Quartair

Seeing Sounds

Seeing Sounds is an interdisciplinary performance by Kaja Majoor featuring Diederik Smulders on the cello, Ricardo Oliveira on percussion, and Majoor on the violin.

The program includes graphic scores by Morton Feldman, Mark Applebaum, Pauline Oliveros, Anas Qadamani, along with original scores by Kaja Majoor.

Saturday, 24 August, 2024 at 16:00 – free entrance

With Seeing Sounds, Majoor investigates how graphic scores can be used to create visual representations of sounds, giving both synesthetes and non-synesthetes a chance to experience music in a multi-sensory way. Exploring the phenomenon of synesthesia through graphic scores, illustrator and violinist Kaja Majoor combines different disciplines through colours, shapes and movements. The scores are projected on a screen in order to give the audience the chance to follow both the improvised music as well as the score.

Recently graduated at the Royal Conservatoire Masters in violin (NAIP / New Audiences and Innovative Practice), Majoor has been working on the project Seeing Sounds for the past two years. As an outcome she has created 5 graphical scores to be performed in collaboration with cellist Diederik Smulders and percussionist Ricardo Oliveira, as a trio at Quartair. Before the concert, Kaja will give a lecture on graphic scores, synesthesia, and her NAIP Master journey.

Photos by Martin Majoor

Acts of Publication

Upcoming Saturday, July 6th, we will be hosting a movement workshop focusing on practices of “dribble”, dodging, “esquiva”.

“Dribble” as in dodging obstacles through sudden quick movements, aims to achieve a loose body. The loose body means a body living in the present, a body ready to fight; a body that dances to handle the everyday, surviving societal and colonial violence. At the same time, it dances to write history, to celebrate memories, to shake control and colonial “peace”. On this day we will move in order to write narratives, and imagine ways of publishing knowledge through dance and orallity.

Parcela de Tierra is a movement research collective created out of the need of shared spaces for bodies displaced from their own environments. Organised by designers, activists and performace artists Elisa de la Serna and Lara Silva Santos, they invite Yadhira de León to facilitate this workshop.

Parcela de Tierra seeks to reclaim space and to question Eurocentric, institutional and repressive environments in which popular culture has little to no room to flourish. It strives to hold space and to facilitate performances based on improvisation, connection and affection. Collaboration with grassroots initiatives is an essential part of the collective’s practice, for the creation of a support network that transcends institutional borders. Check out their other events planned this week.

Saturday, July 6th
16:30 doors open
17:00-18:20 movement workshop on dodging, “esquiva”, protection, self-defense and theatrical games
18:20 break
18:40-19:30 round table discussion about the challenges of publishing and re-imagining ways to publish
19:30-20:00 cooling down and closure

Free entrance.

centre OFF gravity

Ildikó Horváth: artist in residence, 17– 28 June

Quartair is proud to have Ildikó Horváth as artist in residence this month. By developing a spatial audio installation and a series of performances, the artist highlights the relevance of aural perception, searching for the role that sound plays in our relationship with Earth and gravity. Inspired by kinetic toys such as spinning tops or roly-poly toys, her material research centers ceramic objects of various sizes and shapes that can be animated to maintain motion for a certain time, while the audio technology interacts with the ceramic pieces.

The resulting work aims to facilitate a conscious listening exercise that is integrated with tangible matter, movement and digital technology. In the work digital sound processing is understood and employed as an interface between various physical realities: installation objects, sculptures, audience, performers and maker, in order to embrace bodily experiencing and sensory encounters with fellow entities.

During the 2 week long period at Quartair, Ildikó will further develop the installation setup along with the soundscape, diving deeper into the possibilities regarding composition and narrative. She will closely work together with movement performers from various backgrounds: Melody Nolan (circus), Niek Vanoosterweyck (mime) and Amit Palgi (dance), focusing on the feedbacking dynamics between performers, movement and sound.

Open rehearsal, Wednesday, 26th June at 20:00
the public is welcome to the joint performance by Melody, Niek, Amit and Ildikó.

Conceptual and sound design support: Zeno van den Broek, Michele Abolaffio, Mark Ijzerman
Audience interaction advising: Ludmila Rodrigues
With the generous support of Creative Industries Fund NL, Mondriaan Fund, Het Niemeijer Fonds and The Grey Space in the Middle

Visit also: ildikohorvath.com