The playfulness of your voice

- the Joy of Vocal Improvisation

Workshop Details

the workshop is 1 - 6 full days with coffe and lunch break

The workshop will be held in english or swedish

and when needed a translator of the hosting country will be arranged

The workshop fee varies depending on the country and venue

The aim of the workshop is to  give the participants, disregarding earlier experience, the opportunity to awaken, expand, explore and develop the flow of his/her musical- and voice creativity in vocal improvisation.

The workshop is for amateurs and professionals alike, for people with or without experience

in vocal- or musical improvisation in general.

The workshop will be filled with  playfulness, interactivity, laborations

and explorations, musical meetings and a creative open space in a non-judgmental atmosphere.

We will explore the genre-free (the not bound to certain style) musical improvisation and how to develop it in a personal way.

We will play with Improvisational formulas, games and frameworks, from the simplest to the more complex.  The level will be dependent on the participants skills and wishes. We will work in both full and small group constellations.

Formulas like Call and Response Circles, Gibberish Circles, Sound Exploring, Tone Weaving, Clusters, Free Duets, Pattern Duets or Trios, Drone and Power solos, Transformation loops, Site Specific Improvisations, Scanning Solos, Vocal Improvisations based on Images-, Movements or other parameter ….and many others will be explored and developed.

We will discover how much Listening, Allowances, Generosity and Flexibility means to the the art of improvisation.  We will practice the principle of saying YES to whatever comes, to handle and to play with it, to open the doors to vocal creativity. 

We will experience the deep connection between Playfulness and Improvisation and how that is a very basic human way of being and working and crucial to all cultural and human development.

We will see  how everybody owns this ability as an innate potential ready to be revealed and developed

- disregarding earlier training or experience.

Everyday will be started with more than an hour of breathing, softening, grounding and opening up the voice as well as with movement games that will enhance the flow and inner flexibility. 

Everyone is expected to bravely throw him/herself in to the work with the sounding, toning and melodic voice. However, if you happen to be an instrumentalist you are welcome to bring your instrument and there will eventually be opportunities to for instrumental improvisations as well. The meeting mixture of instrument and voice is a chapter of its own.       

Teacher and facilitator Kefas Berlin

has practiced and explored musical improvisation since childhood as a natural way of making music by himself.

As an adult he found him self deeply inspired by the vocal improvisation work of Swedish musician and teacher

Pär Ahlbom through participating workshops and collaborations since 1984.

He also took part of the american vocal artist Rhiannon´s  Improvisation teachings and methods.

After 4 years of dance training he started 1991 to explore Dance improvisation and later movement forms likorContact improvisation and Floor work.

During the years he has been teaching and facilitating numerous workshops and classes in

Vocal Improvisation, Movement- and Contact Improvisation and the Integration of Voice & Movement in Improvisation.

2002-09 he coordinated a one year full time course in physical theatre. As being the main teacher the main subjects was Movement and Voice, how to eliminate obstacles and release creativity in drama, movement and voice. 

During 15 years he developed the workshop and method The liberated Voice where vocal improvisation is used as an crucial part of liberating the voice and the vocal creativity.

Since 1991 he has been involved in hundreds of stage productions - as a dancer, actor, musician, actor, composer or director. Improvisation has always played an essential role - from the generating of a piece to the actual performance. 

***

The art of Improvisation is connected to the Intelligence of the body,

that ”Instant knowing”, what to DO, how, when and where.

I call it Intuition and it is nourished by trust to the flow. 

Improvisation invites and develops Intuition. Seen in this way…artistic improvisation is

not only a wonderful way of doing art together but also always a preparation

for life itself.