Maja von Kriegstein
Free Improv – Orchestra
Workshop, English/Deutsch, 2 SWS, 2 ECTS
5 Fridays, each 14-18 h, 2 Saturdays, 10-14 h: 3./4.5., 10.5., 24.5., 31.5., 7./8.6.2024, Lietzenburger Straße 45, Raum 103

Registration on Moodle starts 15.04.2024:
https://moodle.udk-berlin.de/moodle/course/view.php?id=2261
Moodle Enrollment Key / Einschreibeschlüssel: improv

The Free Improv-Orchestra is a meeting point for everyone eager to experiment as a performing body and to work towards forming a collective performing body – an interdisciplinary improvising orchestra. Students of all departments are welcome, also and especially the ones who do not formally study music. We will start with some contemporary techniques of musical improvisation and their overlapping areas to performance art. The artistic practice will be accompanied by a few readings about the theory of improvisation. We will also look into examples of existing groups and into the history of the term “Free Improvisation”.

Depending on the interest of the participants, possible topics/experiments in the next phase can be:  physical and listening warmups, the exploration of the poetic potential of everyday objects, listening to environments as musical events, listening to the different languages as soundscapes, compose sonifications of rhythms that shape our everyday life, experiment as a group while still looking for individual creative integrity, discuss the relation of composition and improvisation in different artistic fields, experiment with the combination of simultaneous improvisations in different artforms. – These are just examples. Depending on who joins, other than the above topics or just one of them might become relevant.

The main focus of the course are student projects. There will be time and space for them.
We will have a public presentation of our experimentations at the end of the course.

Requirements for the ungraded Studium Generale credit points: very regular participation, one self-defined project (alone or as a team) as well as keeping an improvisation diary over the duration of the whole course.

Maja von Kriegstein is a musician, performer and university lecturer at the UdK Berlin. Her predominantly collectively developed free works include improvised music, experimental band projects and post-dramatic music theater. In these works, socio-political issues are often embedded in the context of experimental music. More information on https://www.udk-berlin.de/person/maja-kriegstein/, www.mannausobst.eu, www.detox.wtf.