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Workshops

A body as listening - Music creation workshop

by Joana Sá
with students from the Seia Conservatory of Music
Seia Conservatory of Music, May 2024

Illustration by Rita Sá

How many invisible and inaudible things occur simultaneously in our bodies without us being aware of it? We are inhabited by sounds that are strange to us, that are out of our control, but that are part of who we are. We could say: the ability of listening to the other begins with this ability of listening to ourselves. Or: the ability of listening to the other begins with this listening process in which we become strangers to ourselves and realise that we also are other strange beings...

Listening -
as a body’s capacity for
resonating itself
an other...

After a fun exercise of listening to our bodies (with an amplified stethoscope and doppler), we'll try to reflect on the multiple interactions that take place within our bodies and on how we react and deal with them. After this exercise, we'll move on to a collaborative process of musical creation that will seek to find, through collective reflection and listening, ideas and resources for the composition and performance of a new piece. We'll create music with our bodies, rhythms and sensibilities and realise how strongly each person's differences can enrich a community, when resonating along.

Collaborative music creation workshop by Joana Sá & Luís J Martins within à escuta collective

with the Philharmonic Band Botto Machado from Gouveia
workshop in the context of the project Folha Volante/ Leaf-Flyer (à escuta collective).
Gouveia, January-February 2024

Starting with exercises that (de)construct the idea that the forest is an exteriority to the city, we began to realise that, directly or indirectly, the city depends on the forest or on deforestation for everything… and that, of course, the forest gives us the air we breathe and the possibility of living. But more: we began to realise that even our musical instruments are either made of wood, or have wood in their construction or that at least, they depend on burning trees to smelt the metal...

From this deconstruction, various ideas or starting points emerged for us to work together on the theme of the forest and our relationship with it.

We began to think about an important role of the philharmonic bands: that of celebrating the festivities of local villages. The band parade in these festivities is an annual sacred ritual that celebrates the communities through this moment of gathering - walking together with the band, listening.

What if, in the festivities of local villages, we could think of the community in a broader way? A way that also encompasses the forests and ecosystems where these communities are located? Or, in other words: what if these forests and ecosystems became part of this community that is sacred to us and that we celebrate?
And what if, in this sense, we experimented with composing music together as a community that celebrated this wider community? What would that music be like? What would the process of creating it be like?

The work that was carried out throughout the workshop was then incorporated in the final presentation of the project Folha Volante/ Leaf Flyer at the Gouveia Market, February 17th 2024.

Workshop a body as listening: resonant cartography

By Joana Sá
for Artistas Anónimos/ Anonymous Artists
Lisbon, December 2023

Illustration by Rita Sá

Held on near New Year’s eve, an auspicious time for self-questioning, self-deconstruction and envisioning of other futures, this workshop is an invitation for both individual/collective reflection in order to find more resonant tools and logics for a new year of work and life.

The workshop ‘a body as listening: resonant cartography’ will be based on Joana Sá's multidimensional project ‘a body as listening - resonant cartography of music (im)materialities’. Based on this project, we will:

  • reflect on the idea of listening and the relationship with the other through the idea of listening as the capacity of a body to resonate itself an other...
  • bring this idea into the context of our artistic practices;
  • establish the idea of resonant cartography as a type of cartography that is not intended to be an exercise of representation of something (our artistic practice) that is external to it (cartography), but which seeks to be a new space or an ex-tension of that same artistic practice;
  • bring our experiences/ reflections together and, from there, create a resonant cartography with various voices, various practices, various openings.

Target audience: students, aspirants and professionals from any artistic field.

À escuta: ao largo
Collaborative music creation workshop by Joana Sá & Luís J Martins within à escuta collective

with music students of EPSE – Escola Profissional de Seia - in the context of the project Catálogo Poético/ Poetic Catalogue, 2021
Frádigas, May 2021

Design, Ana Viana

What does the village of Frádigas and the surrounding Serra da Estrela Natural Park sound like? What different living and non-living beings can we find here? and how do they interact with each other in this ecosystem to which the village also belongs?
How many things - invisible and inaudible to our senses - happen simultaneously here without us even imagining it?
How can we hear them?
How is each one of us, with our singularities, part of an ecosystem?
How do our differences coexist and resonate?
And how are our actions reflected in the functioning of an ecosystem?

After a walk around the village, listening, we'll try to reflect on the multiple sounds and interactions that take place between beings (living and non-living). After this listening exercise, we'll move on to a process of collaborative musical creation that will seek to find, ideas and resources for the composition and performance of a new piece. We'll create music with our different bodies, rhythms and sensibilities and will realise how each living (and non-living) beings’ and their differences can enrich a community, when resonating along.

Workshop À escuta: à fonte
community and poetic cartography of the territory

by Luís J Martins and Joana Sá, with graphic materials designed by Ana Viana (designer)
Open to the community of Frádigas and Vide
Frádigas, May 2021

Design, Ana Viana

In the village of Frádigas, the expression ‘estar à fonte’ refers to the idea of being in community, in the village's central square, next to the fountain [fonte/source] and the LAF (the local association, Liga dos Amigos de Frádigas) café. In this workshop we will all be the source [fonte] of variable flows, more or less sinuous streams, that will trace a multiplicity of perspectives, layers and dimensions of this territory. These dimensions will be collected through sound recordings and traced on maps and graphic materials created by à escuta designer Ana Viana.

At the final event Catálogo Poético/Poetic Catalogue, an installation – à fonte – was created from the materials produced at the workshop.

Workshop: Creation of sound organisms

For Gymnasium, Casa Branca
E.B. 1 de Bensafrim, Lagos
November, 2024

Illustration by Rita Sá

How do all our organs, all our cells sound, when working simultaneously? And what does the village, town or city we live in sound like? How do differences co-exist and resonate?
Who wakes up first? Who likes to walk slowly and who enjoys running or jumping all the time?
Let's try to stop for a while and to listen to each other, realising our differences and making them resonate. Let's create sound organisms with our different bodies, rhythms, sensibilities, tastes and realise how differences together can make multiple sound senses.

Workshop
The sounds that rise...

by Joana Sá & Luís J Martins, as music coordinators for CENTA – Center for New Artistic Tendencies, Vila Velha de Ródão 2007-2008

This workshop is based on the graphic score, a musical notation concept used by many of the contemporary avant-garde composers.

The workshop comprises three distinct stages:
- Approach to the fundamental principles of music (pitch, dynamics, timbre, duration) through playful exercises in contemporary music aesthetics;
- Creation of a collective musical work using the learnings of the previous stage and using collage, painting and drawing techniques as means for musical notation;
- The works composed by the students will be played by the workshop tutors at the end.

This workshop had several sessions with different schools in Coimbra and Sines.

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