Sounding Here TRIPLE BILL: Jonatan Alvarado, Noise Under The Umbrella, Centre OFF Gravity

Sounding Here: the balance of voice, space and bodies
Splendor x Batavierhuis (Rotterdam) - Art that LIVES and grows in one-night-festival atmosphere!

For the last event of 2023, Sounding Here brings together new experiments from genres in which sound is central. Featuring a voice in search of authenticity, two performers in balance and two musicians under an umbrella. Expect a celebration of art that lives and grows in a one-night-festival atmosphere!

Sounding Here concert series was created by Christine Cornwell This edition includes:

Jonathan Alvarado [voice] - 400 years, ringing true
A short recital of songs spanning 400 years, performed by an artist at a crossroads, exploring the boundaries laid down by the inherent aura of historical artifacts, repertories, styles and practices, while seeking to find a sort of "authenticity" which could ring true for him as much as for the music and the audience.

Jonatan Alvarado is a singer and player of (very) old songs, be them contained by medieval and renaissance manuscripts scattered all over the world, or found in the oral traditions of Europe and the Americas. His solo performances regularly feature rare, seldom heard musical jewels, played and sung with historical techniques and instruments, but without loosing touch with contemporary audiences and practices. He is the musical director of the ensemble Seconda Prat!ca and regularly performs and records with other critically acclaimed ensembles such as Sollazzo, Da Tempera Velha and Armonía Concertada, among many others. His musical restlessness has brought him to some of the most important festivals and stages, from the Abbey of Royaumont to the Wiener Konzerhaus to the Bimhuis Amsterdam.

NUTU - Noise Under The Umbrella [Audio-visual duet] - Agota Tamelyte & Xico Ribas
A rainy autumn day in 2022 Agota Tamelyte and Xico Ribas left the house with 3 umbrellas in their hands (just in case). Wondering through the noisy streets of Amsterdam, they obsessed themselves with a distressful search for something, but nothing in particular.
Hours passed by...
A Few pigeons squeaked, one tire popped, an old man coughed. Water babbled in the canals, church bells chimed at 12.59, cars honked and clocks ticked.
Hours passed by...
A high-heeled lady click-clacked along the street. In the cafe a couple argued whose turn is to take the dog out for a walk. Xico suggested to flip a coin.
Hours passed by...
And the wind grabbed one of the umbrellas and blew it to Somewhere.

'Noise under the Umbrella' is an audiovisual and interactive experience in which Agota Tamelyte and Xico Ribas invite the audience to metamorphose into a rainy story in Amsterdam. With the help of live-cams, clocks, synthesizers, telephones, harmonicas, metal chunks, umbrellas and other 'noisy' objects (the help of audience will be a must as well) they'll 'perform' a 40 min improvisation on the spot, aspiring to raise the awareness and perhaps even appreciation towards all kinds of noise surrounding on daily human life.NUTU (Noise Under the Umbrella)
A rainy autumn day in 2022 Agota Tamelyte and Xico Ribas left the house with 3 umbrellas in their hands (just in case). Wondering through the noisy streets of Amsterdam, they obsessed themselves with a distressful search for something, but nothing in particular.
Hours passed by...
A Few pigeons squeaked, one tire popped, an old man coughed. Water babbled in the canals, church bells chimed at 12.59, cars honked and clocks ticked.
Hours passed by...
A high-heeled lady click-clacked along the street. In the cafe a couple argued whose turn is to take the dog out for a walk. Xico suggested to flip a coin.
Hours passed by...
And the wind grabbed one of the umbrellas and blew it to Somewhere.

'Noise under the Umbrella' is an audiovisual and interactive experience in which Agota Tamelyte and Xico Ribas invite the audience to metamorphose into a rainy story in Amsterdam. With the help of live-cams, clocks, synthesizers, telephones, harmonicas, metal chunks, umbrellas and other 'noisy' objects (the help of audience will be a must as well) they'll 'perform' a 40 min improvisation on the spot, aspiring to raise the awareness and perhaps even appreciation towards all kinds of noise surrounding on daily human life.

Centre OFF Gravity [Circus artist + Sound art] - Melody Nolan & Ildikó Horváth
Coordinated by sight, gravitational pull and contact, the balancing system of our bodies has evolved to be grounded on the surface of the Earth, attuned to a human-paced rhythm. The project ‘centre OFF gravity’ delves into the intricate relationship between the human sensory apparatus and gravity, with a specific emphasis on sound and tactile materials.

While the vestibular organ, located in the inner ear, plays a crucial role in balancing, hearing is not deemed essential for this purpose according to biomedical discourse. By developing a spatial audio installation and a series of performances based on kinetic ceramic objects, Ildikó Horváth aims to highlight the subtle but strong relevance of aural perception, in search for the role sound plays in the human body’s relationship with Earth and gravity. The resulting work aims to facilitate a conscious listening exercise that is integrated with tangible matter, movement and digital technology. Besides the physical and sometimes medical investigation, Ildikó is searching for an intuitive and poetic awareness wherein sound contributes to balancing and spatial orientation.

In order to explore the participatory aspect of the installation, Ildikó invited Melody Nolan circus artist, with whom she jointly observes the spectrum of balance, including bodily limits, vertigo or weightlessness. Melting handstands with acrobatic movement, Melody nourishes a rich dialogue between her body and the space and expression of ‘centre OFF gravity’.

Invited performer: Melody Nolan
Conceptual and sound design support: Michele Abolaffio, Mark IJzerman, Zeno van den Broek
Financial partners: Creative Industries Fund NL, Mondriaan Fund, Het Niemeijer Fonds

Ildikó Horváth is an Amsterdam based artist whose experimental installations examine the fluid relationship between the physical and the virtual realms, with an emphasised awareness of physical matter and its transformations. Working with the conflicting duality of stability and temporality she uses tactile materials that constantly change over time, in combination with sound and digital media, performance and audience interaction.

Melody Nolan (1998) is a circus maker hailing from California. As a keen explorer of her physicality and surroundings, Melody draws inspiration from a physical approach to artistic research, balancing technique with creativity. Her work melds handstands with acrobatic movement as she seeks to nourish a rich dialogue between body and space. Melody is motivated by the potential circus holds for offering different perspectives in novel contexts and settings, and is therefore especially interested in site-based and interdisciplinary work.

The Sounding Here concert series was created by Christine Cornwell

This edition:
Jonathan Alvarado [Stem]

Noise Under The Umbrella [Audio-visual duet]:
Agota Tamelyte & Xico Ribas

Centre OFF Gravity [Circus artist + Sound art]:
Melody Nolan & Ildikó Horváth