Echoic Choir
Stine Janvin & Ula Sickle
Performance (45 min)
Online Première: Dampfzentrale - Bern, April 10th 2021Live premiere: Wiener Festwochen - Vienna, June 3rd, 4th, 5th 2021
"Nothing left to dream. Climax, anti-climax. Repetition, endless repetition. A thousand plateaus of crescendo."
From the novella Last Utopia, by Persis Bekkering.
A collaboration between vocalist Stine Janvin (NO) and choreographer Ula Sickle (CA/PL/BE), Echoic Choir evokes the ritual of coming together on a dance floor around music in the late hours of the night. Relying on the power of acoustic voices and spatial resonance, with minimal amplification and effects, the project aims to create a collective and immersive sensorial event. Placing the performers and the audience in a shared space, such as a rave or nightclub, sound, choreography and the visual aspects of the work, such as light, create a strong synesthetic experience for the audience.
Echoic Choir was developed during Covid with strict parameters and physical distancing in mind, but the performance and set-up has shifted with each presentation of the work. In its minimalism, Echoic Choir breaks down the club experience to its essentials. In an immersive light setting, voice and body are at the center. The music is a patchwork of interlocking rhythms, hockets and words coming from the performers' voices and bodies as they breathe, sing and move. Worn like a second skin, their collective sweat drips from their latex outfits. The spectators presence adds a level of density to the space, blending together with the performers, they embody a new kind of communal ritual.
Concept, composition Stine Janvin
Concept, choreography Ula Sickle.
Performance Michelle Cheung, Stine Janvin, Cara Tolmie, Sidney Barnes, Ula Sickle & Annalise Van Even (originally with Roman Ole, Rishin Singh)
Research Amanda Barrio Charmelo, Lisa Vereertbrugghen
Light Ofer Smilansky (originally with Marcel Webber/MFO)
Sound Raphaël Hénard (originally with Olivia Oyama)
Libretto, dramaturgy Persis Bekkering
Costumes Wang Consulting
Shuffle Steps inspired by Harrison and Hlyan
Graphic design D-E-A-L
Coproduction Wiener Festwochen, MUNCH (Oslo), STUK House for Dance, Image and Sound (Leuven), Dampfzentrale Bern
With the support of the Flemish Community, the Flemish Community Commission, DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program
Residencies Kunstenwerkplaats (Brussels),DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program, Dampfzentrale Bern
Tour management Joëlle Laederach
Production, diffusion Future Works (Brussels)
photo: Camille Blake