The Soul of Song

An Exploration with Maud Robart

In ancient Africa, the essence of art was the celebration of life.

And what does it mean to celebrate life ?

It is an intimate and vital experience which Maud Robart proposes to explore through a careful ap¬proach to traditional models drawn from the Afro-Haitian voodoo repertory, such as ritual songs and movements. When fully embodied, these models have a percussive and ardent effect on the sen¬sibility, and open us to new, liberated energies. In an impetus for being, the natural flow of pure spon-taneity then reveals the dancing soul in everyone, one's own creative identity.

This experience can be entered via the fine listening of the singer. The transparent attention that they are paying to their inner perceptions, to the melodic and rhythmical precision of the songs... their interactions with the situation thus become sensitive components of the ongoing process.

A dynamic tension between rule and freedom brings the creative subject to surrender to the living forces of the songs, to flow into the source of life itself.

Field of exploration

Based on oral transmission, this approach aims at regaining, through gentle induction, the innate unity of body and voice. The focus is on discovering the wave of the song. The wave itself requests this unity, expressing the inner energy of the song.

Key elements

Rhythmical sonorities and walking dances are the basic elements of this practice of archaic song and movement.

Structures of collective action in space, subject to pulsation, are introduced in order to learn to move within one and the same energy

At the beginning of each session, a cycle of physical exercises will be suggested, as a subtle invitation for the body-mind to become more available

Conditions of participation*

The exploration is open to anyone in good physical and psychological shape who feels a need to engage, with full awareness, in a process of self-inquiry and artistic discovery.

Required skills:

Sing in tune

Keep repetitive rhythmical patterns in song and gesture alive over a period of time

Expand the attention to embrace the totality of a given situation

*  The number of beginners is limited to 7 – 10                                                                                                                                                    At the end of the workshop, participants are not allowed to use, share, or publish the methodological and technical elements of the practice.

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