Workshop with Ditte Berkeley

Mon–Tue 18–19 April 2016, 10:00–13:00

Na Grobli Studio, tent beside the Wodnik Hotel

The workshop will be conducted in English

Contact and application
Please email your completed application form by 3 April 2016 to Ewelina Sochacka at warsztaty@voicencounters.art.pl. Please include in the subject of the email ‘VoicEncounters workshops’ followed by the name of the chosen workshop. We will get back to you by 5 April 2016. The number of places is limited.

Fee: 40 EUR

A voice has a tale to tell. In fact, the voice has a million tales to tell, depending on the song it’s singing, the experiences it goes through, the person who is listening, the sounds surrounding it, the state I, who am singing, am in.

As an actress I enter into a dialogue with my voice every time I sing a song. I ask: How are we going to sing this today? What about this sound? How does it feel? What does it say? What tale does it tell? The exploration takes me further and brings more questions. This is the work of the performer that wishes to make the song a tool for a very deep exchange of experience between the singer and the listener. The voice is naked, and allows us to share on a level that we are not used to and often feel unsure in. The exploration of its boarders and its connections with the physical experience, with images, with associations, makes richer our tools for communication and allows for a space of discovery.

The work session focuses on an exploration into our own voices and our voices reflected and fused in the voices of others; on the strength of standing confident with the sound of our own voice, exploring its richness and building the foundation to support it, through breath, physical support, imagination. Discovering its strength when appearing singly, and power when it adds to the richness of a common sound created by other voices.

Ditte Berkeley is a performer with Teatr ZAR. Born in Denmark, brought up in Spain and currently living in Poland, Ditte trained as an actress and graduated from Rose Bruford College of Speech and Drama in London (2001). She has performed in and co-created all of Teatr ZAR’s performances: Gospels of Childhood: Fragments on Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood (2003), Caesarean Section: Essays on Suicide (2007), Anhelli: The Calling (2010) and Armine, Sister (2013). Alongside the activity with Teatr ZAR, she collaborates with Studio Matejka in their vocal training and musical work. She is a vocal and music supervisor for their performances Awkward Happiness, or Everything I Don’t Remember About Meeting You and Charmolypi. She is the leader of the workshop ‘Into the Sound’, conducted in collaboration with Teatr ZAR. She also collaborates with Matej Matejka in his workshop ‘Awakening the Listening Body’.

In 2009, in collaboration with the Centre for Performance Research in Aberystwyth, Wales, she co-organised the unique international festival Giving Voice. The festival focuses on the voice and brings together vocal artists from all around the world. The 2009 edition of the event was held at the Grotowski Institute in Wrocław, Poland.

In 2010 she organised in Wroclaw the first session of a cyclical event called VoicEncounters: ‘Reclaiming the Voice’, focusing on the research and sharing of vocal cultures from around the world. The first edition of the event, ‘The Phenomenon of Latin Confraternities’, took place in November 2010 under the auspices of the Grotowski Institute. The second edition, ‘My Silent Sister’, was held in November 2012 and focused on Armenian musical heritage and history. As a result of her vocal research, she has carried out numerous expeditions with Teatr ZAR as well as individually, amongst others to: Georgia, Bulgaria, Spain, Ukraine, Corsica, Morocco, Sardinia and Armenia.

  As part of VoicEncounters, practical seminar