2017

Liebig12 February residency schedule for Muyassar Kurdi:

Muyassar Kurdi is a Brooklyn-based interdisciplinary artist. Her work encompasses sound, extended vocal technique, performance art, movement, photography, and film. She has toured extensively in the U.S. and throughout Europe, including the Netherlands, Denmark, Italy, France, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, and the UK in both England and Scotland. A versatile improviser, Muyassar has composed and performed music for voice, harmonium, piano, lyre, autoharp, and theremin in both solo and collaborative environments. She currently focuses her attention to interweaving homemade electronic instruments and sculpture into her vocal and dance performances, stirring a plethora of emotions from her audience members through vicious noise, ritualistic chants, and meditative movements. Kurdi studied voice and dance with legendary vocalist, dancer and recording artist Meredith Monk via The House Foundation, as well as learning the Japanese dance tradition of Butoh with Tadashi Endo, director of the Butoh Center MAMU. She also explored Butoh with Mexican master of the form Diego Pi ñon among others throughout Chicago, NYC, Berlin, and Vienna. She currently studies with Juilliard faculty member Janis Brenner, also a member of the Meredith Monk Vocal Ensemble.

Presentation: MACHINE//BODY Intersections and Variations

Modes: movement, voice, sound, sculpture, theatre, film

MACHINE//BODY presents a series of explorations centered on the machine in relation to the body. The machine is represented with home-made electronics; one of the devices further connects the modes of movement and sound by responding to light and movement, which then produces microtonal sounds. The body is represented: bare with tension-filled movements that interact with the environment. The body laughs at its constant absurdity, the body is theatre, shape, gesture, and the body recognizes its smallness and grandness, its boundlessness and limitations. MACHINE//BODY creates a ritual-space. Intersections and Variations explores ideas, variations, associations, and theories around a line in space. The line transmits energy and communicates; it is seen as a boundary and an extension of anatomy. The line also creates form, and a new kind of space within a space. Two different sized ropes are used to interact with the space- tied to pillars or simply hanging from the ceiling; The movement mimics its outstretched form, interacts with its presence in all its variations. The second version of this performance uses sculpture on set with materials such as wood, clay, and ready-made objects as well as additional instrumentation.

Dates:

9th: Berlin, Liebig12 (performance)

Machine//Body Series, 20:00 – sound/movement duo by Korhan Erel and Lerna Babikyan: “Deconstruction of a Poem” – sound/movement duo by Adam Pultz Melbye and Jenny Haack “Intersections and Variations” by Muyassar Kurdi

17th: Berlin, Liebig12 (performance)

Machine//Body Series, 20:00 – Doron Sadja – sound & movement by Jagna Anderson, Dodi Helschinger and Anja Weber: “amorphe legierung” – “Intersections and Variations” by Muyassar Kurdi

18th: Berlin, Liebig12 – Workshop by Muyassar Kurdi, 12:00-14:00, (details under menu: Workshop)

25th: Berlin, Liebig12 (performance)

Machine//Body Series, 21:00 – Warble (Brad Henkel, Carlo Costa, Miako Klein trio) – sound/movement trio by Eric Wong, Elma Riza, and Mireia Aragones: “Story of Shapes- Extended Blue” – “Intersections and Variations” by Muyassar Kurdi

*Additional performances, collaborations, workshops, and lectures TBA

*For updated information, visit muyassarkurdi.com

*Thanks for the support of Vorspiel 2017 (joint effort by transmediale and CTM)