COLLECTIVE SONG – Performance led by Céline Gillain

During a one week singing workshop, 12 participants formed a choir-cum-support group. They experimented with building a collective song, inspired by rituals, personal stories, club culture and feminist theories. As the result of the workshop, they will present their collective song. This performance is part of ANTENA, a year-long program dedicated to listening. ANTENA is the project Céline Gillain created for SUPERHOST 2023.

The psychic, almost magical power of words sung, spoken, or yelled might open some gates. We’ll create bizarre beats inspired by techno and electronic music with makeshift homemade percussions. Rhythm can lead to a trance and has the potential to shake the walls, create a crack in the system. As contradictory as it may seem, rhythm creates change, rhythm leads to transformation. – Céline Gillain

The perfomance will take place on the 6th floor of the M HKA. The performance is free. No reservation necessary.

The choir-cum-support group

This open call has been closed.

In this four-day workshop, 12 participants are invited to take part in a choir-cum-support group.

What?
How to survive capitalist patriarchy and the institution? That is one of the questions that will drive this collective and experimental music project. Together, we will build a collective song inspired by DIY rituals, storytelling, club culture and feminist theory.

The CHOIR-CUM-SUPPORT-GROUP workshop is part of ANTENA, a year-long programme dedicated to listening, created by Céline Gillain for SUPERHOST 2023 at the M HKA.

The choir-cum-support group becomes a space to meet each other, and to experiment, listen together, and share common experiences. Both the joy, the tension and the chaos of working together are used as material to create new narratives and to explore the notion of ‘futurability’. Participants will experiment with their voices in all sorts of ways, experiencing what it means to listen, to be loud or to keep silent, and to occupy a sonic space as a group. The psychic, almost magical power of words sung, spoken, or yelled might open some gates. Using makeshift homemade percussions, we’ll create bizarre beats inspired by techno and dance music, because rhythm can lead to trance and has the potential to shake the walls. To create a crack in the system. Saturday 20 May, the resulting collective song will be performed in front of an audience.

With whom?
The workshop is led by Céline Gillain. Gillain is a musician, performance and video artist based in Brussels. Gillain’s approach is interdisciplinary: she works across the fields of experimental music and electronic music, and visual and performing arts. The representation of her voice and body as well as her acute analysis of communication and relationships attest to a posture that is driven by movements of liberation and empowerment. During the last decade Céline Gillain has performed extensively in Europe, at music festivals, museums and art centres.

Inspired by listening methodologies applied in feminist group discussions, Gillain leads various workshops and is co-founder of a class dedicated to sound creation and experimental music at Brussels visual arts school La Cambre.

When?
Workshop: From Tuesday 16 to Friday 19 May, 11:00-17:00
Public performance: Saturday 20 May, 14:00-18:00 (2 hours rehearsal + public performance at 16:00)

Participants are kindly requested to be available for all dates mentioned above, in order to secure the smooth running of the project.

For whom?
No special skills are required to participate in the choir-cum-support group, nor do we ask for a technical background or experience with making music. Still an interest in music and rhythm is definitively a plus. Anyone driven by the desire to use their voice and rhythm to explore gender-based issues, female desire and intersectional feminism is welcome.

We welcome people based in Belgium. English will be used as a common language between participants, yet we will move organically between languages, according to the needs of the participants.

Where?
The workshop and public performance will take place in the SUPERHOST space, located on the 6th floor of the M HKA. Address: M HKA, Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp, Leuvenstraat 32, 2000 Antwerp.

What can you expect?
A safe shared environment for a collective experience. The outcome is a communal performance. To release and distribute the recording of the performance, we can work together with Antwerp based record label Cortizona. This will depend on both the interest and consent of the participants.

The M HKA provides a refund of your travel costs to and fro the museum, over the five day duration of the project (public transport within Belgium). Lunch will be served daily and shared with all participants.

How to apply?
Write us a short ‘letter of desire’ telling us who you are and why you want to participate in the project (about one paragraph, max. 1 page). Please also explicitly confirm your availability for all dates mentioned above. Applications should be sent to laura.sofia.arbelaez@muhka.be by 23 April 2023. We will confirm your participation no later than 25 April 2023.