Echoic Choir is a collaboration between singer, performer, and sound artist Stine Janvin and choreographer Ula Sickle which takes clubbing back to its core. The pure voices of a choir occupy the space, replacing the booming speakers of a club, while the performance explores the ritual of dance that unites in the small hours of the morning. The project aims to create a collective and immersive sensorial event, by placing the performers and the audience in a shared space, like a rave or nightclub.
In the context of NIGHT SHIFT II, Mika Oki has created a new ephemeral and open-ended installation using the fleeting materials of light, smoke, and music.
"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, Roman Ole, Sidney Barnes, Ula Sickle & Annalise Van Even (originally with 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)
Taking its inspiration from the former Brussels nightclub that was K1, NIGHT SHIFT is a series of four weekends that bring together music, sound, visual arts, dance, and club culture. Once a season, at nightfall, NIGHT SHIFT proposes an interdisciplinary programme guided by the freedom, mystery, and sensations that darkness allows.
