Workshops 2022
a workshop for everyone
It is our wish to provide all participants with a workshop that fits their wishes.
If you have a festival ticket, the registration for the workshops will be later. We will honor your choices on a first come, first serve basis, so register in time! Your choice can only be honored until the workshop is complete.
The registration of the workshop wil be as late as possible to make sure we are in line with all the measures needed due to covid-19 (average groups are 25 but we might need to go to smaller groups of 8 people) We think that the later the choosing process the less change and stress will be created.
(At this moment, the workshop programme is still subject to change)
six tracks of workshops
During the festival there are five 90-minute slots for workshops in five tracks. Workshops will be given on three experience levels:
(*) = starting level: no experience required, open to anyone interested
(**) = intermediate level: Basic experience recommended, aimed at those who want to expand their skillset.
(***) = advanced level: Theoretical and practical experience recommended, aimed to deepen your abilities.
1. Rhythm: “sound your body, move your body” with body percussion rhythm and movement, move in rhythm
workshops by Ben Schütz (Hamburg, Germany), Suba Sankaran & Dylan Bell (Canada) Julian Knörzer (Freiburg, Germany)
Ben Schütz (Hamburg, Germany)
Workshops 1, 13, 25: Play your body, Body Rhythm. Play your body
In these workshops we dive into a short choreography with rhythm and vocal patterns. We get to know new movements, games and improv exercises. Our sense of rhythm, coordination and musicality will be trained along the way. Get ready to play your body!
Suba Sankaran & Dylan Bell (Canada)
Workshop 5: Vocal Percussion: The Art Of Vocal Drums
There’s more to vocal percussion than the sounds: the vocal drummer can be a source of compositional inspiration and can lead your ensemble to exciting places. Dylan and Suba will look at the compositional art of vocal drumming, exploring the use of patterns, rhythmic permutations and displacement to create variety and momentum in your vocal percussion.
Workshop 16: Solkattu – South Indian Rhythm
Solkattu is the vocal percussion language of South India and a great way to add variety to your rhythm palette. In this introduction to tala, the rhythmic aspects of south Indian music, Suba and Dylan will teach various solkattu patterns, hand gestures, body movements and other rhythmic principles.
Julian Knörzer (Freiburg, Germany)
Workshop 9; Beatbox your Choir – for beginners
In this workshop Julian shows you the first simple beatbox sounds. You will learn basic patterns for different music styles and get structured instructions on how to support a vocal ensemble in rhythm and groove with very simple tools. Less is more!
Workshop 19: Beatbox your choir – advanced
In this workshop Julian gives experienced vocal percussionists and beatboxers tips on how to optimize and polish the accompaniment of vocal ensembles. This also includes the spontaneous accompaniment of circle songs. Participants will learn new sounds, complex patterns and optimize their groove in different musical feels.
2. Composition: instant composing, using your brain in the moment. let’s fill the toolbox.
Workshops by Roger Treece (USA), Merel Martens (Netherlands), Sven Keet (Netherlands)
Workshops by Roger Treece (USA),
Workshop 2, 20: Musical Fluency Basic
Musical Fluency is just like language fluency: expressive power, the ability to say what you think. Now we can all do that musically to a degree because we’ve all been around music for a long time, like how we all learned language just by picking it up when we were kids. Great! Then why go to school? Well, we went to school so we could learn to speak better, with more vocabulary, with more expressive syntax and rhetoric. Well: now it’s time to do the same thing musically! In this class you’ll learn some basic elements of the musical language and how to practice them, so you no longer have to guess and hope for the best when you improvise: you can be in control of your musical expression just as much as you are with your verbal expression
Workshop 8, 26: Musical Fluency Advanced
This will be an advanced course for those who already know the Musical Fluency Elements. We’re going to practice them while Circle-Singing and put them to use in real time, creating forms, modulating, and anything and everything else. Now, If you’re still a beginner but want to come and sing and learn how to use the Musical Fluency elements, then you’re welcome!
Merel Martens (Netherlands) (Workshop 11)
Workshop 11: Vocal Painting:
Vocal Painting (VOPA) is an extensive collection of interactive hand signals to become a new language for vocal art, used to complement conventional conducting techniques of choral music. It currently consists of 75 signals and more are in the making. Vocal Paiting is created by Jim Daus. In this workshop Merel will use it to shape your musical ideas in the moment, and let you experience how to use it!
Sven Keet (Netherlands)
workshop 30: Co-creative arranging
Based on music in the moment (improvisation) and artistic brainstorms he creates an arrangement that all the singers involved have ownership of.
Experience for yourself how the magic of improvisation can be used in co-creative arranging!
3. Sound & Melody: two musical elements you can fill your toolbox with when you start singing in the moment: intonation, blending, pitch, harmony, intervals, vowel color and voice timbre.
Workshops by Joey Blake (USA), Roberto Demo (Italy), Sofia Ribeiro (Colombia) Suba Sankaran & Dylan Bell (Canada) Guillermo Rozenthuler (London, UK)
Joey Blake (USA)
Workshop 3: Impro performance skills for singers:
An exploration of how to better listen, use of mic techniques and blend in performance and rehearsal.
Workshop 21: The Solo inside the Song:
In this workshop we will explore how we can use melody to inspire and create improvisation.Also how to use this within the various song forms.
Workshop 27: Bass & Groove:
Finding bass lines, creating chord changes and manipulating the groove and style on the fly.
Roberto Demo (Italy)
Workshop 28: The Orchestra in the Mouth
Can you make your voice sound like a trumpet, a flute, a cello, a violin, a guitar, a harmonica or as a percussion set ? Your Voice has an incredible potential!
Sofia Ribeiro (Colombia)
Workshop 6: The soloing journey
Discover new tools for improving your soloing skills, adding more musical diversity, expansion and direction to your solos.
Workshop 23: Connecting voices
Vocal improvisation structures and games that specially focus on deep listening, supporting and connecting to one another.
Suba Sankaran & Dylan Bell (Canada)
Workshop 7: Find The Notes…tell your story!
Using jazz and blues as a musical backdrop, Suba and Dylan explore the use of blues, jazz and pentatonic scales to expand your note choices, scat syllables and other vocables, instrumental imitation, and improvising as a conversational art form.
Guillermo Rozenthuler (London, UK)
Workshop 17 Anthropos
Using invented language and reimagining the purposes of collective song in the tribe as a way into Collaborative Vocal Improvisation (nice for intermediate- advanced, but if you need a beginners session open for all, It would also work well)
4. Performing: be in the moment. Performing together using your toolbox, expression and interaction to be connected. About supporting and leading, leadership and mastership.
Workshops by Rahel Comtesse (Germany), Roberto Demo (Italy), Kees Kool & Sander Gieling (Netherlands) and Suba Sankaran & Dylan Bell (Canada) Jaka Skapin (London, UK)
Rahel Comtesse (Germany),
Workshop 18: “Lift your Singing into a performance”
In her workshop she will show you a way how to involve your body as an inspiration for singing and how to consciously use space for a more dynamic performing
Roberto Demo (Italy)
Workshop 4 Singfulness “on stage”
Free vocal improvisation and Circlesinging, increasing your personal consciousness. Train your ears rhythm, melody and harmony wise to develop your improv skills. Patterns, Soloing… Listening and Silence !!
Kees Kool en Sander Gieling (Netherlands)
Workshop 10: The playground we create
Kees and Sander will create a playground and a smile on your face while singing in the moment. Open for all…. please come and try
Suba Sankaran & Dylan Bell (Canada)
Workshop 22: Live-Looping and Improvisation
Want to improvise, but don’t have a group to work with? Live-looping is a powerful tool for the solo improvisor, and Dylan and Suba will show you tips, tricks and techniques to make your own one-person band.
Jaka Skapin (London, UK)
Workshop 15: Language in movement
(language/words as a tool of expression rooted in authentic movement) – Open to all.
5. Teaching: for teachers and trainers
Mathieu Vulto (Netherlands)
Workshop 24 Co-creating classrooms
As Vocal Painting spreads across the world on an artistic level, Co-Creative Classrooms are a response to teachers who need to coach children in creating, thinking outside the box and challenging to express themselves through music in the moment.
In the CCC, we see the teacher coaching the group in making lot’s of music & fun, especially singing, and celebrating musical successes! The children are in charge of the musical process.
6. Special angles: Move your body and voice
Gitte Wolffson (Germany)
Workshop 12. Do the improwalk!
The ImproWalk took place in different cities and comes to Nijmegen for the second time. Gitte leads the participants through a selected path around Canisius College. Together the group invents songs inspired by different acoustics, architectual patterns, outdoor floors and natures colours. Out comes a walking concert where everyone is singer and listener as well as a musical explorer at the same time, united in the moment.
Johanna Bernet (Germany)
Workshop 29: Wise in Body – Wise in Sound
In this workshop we will open our senses to the connection of „physical awareness“ and singing together.
Johanna will guide you through playful exercises that help to find access and connection to yourself and the singing group.
Questions we focus on: Where do I find stability, fluidity and powerful direction in my body?
What enables me to stay connected to myself and have a good perception for the group as well?
How do I find support in movement for creating music, instead of being distracted by it?
Let’s explore how the relation of body awareness and voice serves us for our (co-) creative potential!
Barbara Beckmann (Germany)
Workshop14 : Interactive Framework (in improvised concerts)
How do I conceive improvised concerts with mostly non-professional singers. New perspectives on forms that are parity free and yet improvised from the moment along a storyboard. How can we succeed in keeping the energy exciting and interesting. Which methods are helpful for rehearsal. How composed motor lines can guide you through your piece.
