Resonant Cycles
29- 30 November
Crafting a voice | Laurens & Leander from Collective Brownout
The voice can’t be located in one place in our body, but it’s the result of the interaction and interrelation of several different parts (vocal box, pharynx, mouth and tongue, breathing airways, and of course the brain). It is always relating us with ourselves and the bodies of others through air and vibration.
These first two sessions in November will be organized by Laurens and Leander from the Collective Brownout. Laurens is a sound engineer and Leander is a carpenter who will guide us through the making of aeolian instruments. Instruments that sound through vibrations caused by the movement of the wind. What can we learn about our voice by attempting to create an instrument? In which corner of the body does the voice dwell?
​​
Time:
Friday and Saturday 11:00 - 16:00
​
Location:
Buitenplaats Brienenoord
Van Brienenoord 5, Rotterdam
14-15 December
Breath, body, sound: discovering non-verbal language | Aisha & Clio from Collective Brownout
Breath, movement, and sound form the unspoken languages our bodies carry every day. In this workshop, Aisha & Clio from the Collective Brownout invite you to explore how the body can express language beyond words. Together, we’ll discover how emotions, thoughts, and intentions can be communicated through the body’s movements, gestures, and interactions with sound.
Through a series of guided improvisations and exercises, we’ll experiment with movement, breath, and musical instruments as extensions of our physical language. How does the body carry language? This workshop offers a space to experience the body’s natural ability to communicate and create meaning without relying on speech.
​
Time:
Saturday 11:00 - 16:00, Sunday 10:00 - 15:00
​
Location:
Tall Tales Company
Schiemond 20-22, Rotterdam
17 January 25
A River’s Lexicon | Maud van den Beuken and Sophia from Collective Brownout
In an era of doubts and wonders, not knowing which voices represent an inclusive system of political and environmental justice, the language being spoken consists still out of nouns, verbs and adjectives. Rivers, mountains and forests are being asked to translate their presence into a form that is limiting to a Western vocabulary. What if we, as a human specie, wouldn’t act as the translators, but merely the amplifiers? What if we bow to the river, and learn from their lexicon?
On Friday January 17th 2025, we will focus on the presence of the Nieuwe Maas, the river around which Rotterdam has unfolded itself. While exploring the limitations of our voices, breathing and the sounds of our body, we seek for a language amplifying the river’s presence, that looks beyond the confines of words.
​
Time:
11:00 - 16:00
​
Location:
Buitenplaats Brienenoord
Van Brienenoord 5, Rotterdam
18 January 25
Exploring the voice, from chirps and burps to screams and squeals | Stephanie Pan
This workshop led by our guest artist Stephanie Pan will explore the voice through play. Stephanie will help us dive into the vast possibilities of the human voice beyond [traditional] singing, through listening and experimentation.
The workshop consists of group exercises, beginning with a vocal warm up, followed by technical exercises and explanations designed to give participants building blocks for understanding and exploring the different components of sound making with the voice.
In the last part of the workshop, participants will further explore and play with these components through a series of group listening and improvisation exercises.
​
Time:
11:00 - 16:00
​
Location: Batavierhuis
Pieter de Hoochweg 108, Rotterdam
​
Special thanks to Ishtar Bakhtali as our host
21- 22 February 25
Echoes of the city | Hanna & Sophia from Collective Brownout and Formaat Werkplaats
How does the voice of one, echoe in the voice of a collective one? Drawing from everyday life— we will examine how individuals interpret and/or amplify each other's voices to negotiate encounters and relationships and potentially form collectives. What is a “collective voice” and how can we create and navigate it?
Through exercises rooted in improvisation and collective creativity we will explore how non-verbal cues, body language, tone, rhythm and rhyming contribute to dialogue and decision-making processes. The goal is to uncover the multiplicity of voices present in human and non-human interaction. How do we listen, respond, and align with or resist each other’s presence? What happens when we shift our focus from what is being said to how it is being communicated? And what does this reveal about whose voices are heard, silenced, or amplified in different settings?
Time:
11:00 - 16:00
​
Location:
Stichting Formaat,
Westzeedijk 513
3024 EL Rotterdam
28 March 25
Resonance as Culture | Lio & Lea from Collective Brownout
In this session, we will revisit the various activities and experiences from our previous meetings, reflecting on the themes we’ve explored together. Now, we shift focus toward gathering, shaping, and envisioning how the acts created throughout this project can come together as performative entanglements for a public presentation.
A key question we will explore is: How can we understand resonance as a form of culture? Resonance, both literal and metaphorical, involves the way individual voices, actions, and ideas reverberate and interact within a shared space. Can resonance be seen as a cultural process, where collective meaning and identity are shaped through ongoing interactions and responses? As we rehearse, we aim to transform our individual experiences into a stronger collective movement, using resonance as a lens to view how culture is constantly negotiated, created, and transformed.
Time:
11:00 - 16:00
​
Location:
Buitenplaats Brienenoord
Van Brienenoord 5, Rotterdam
29 March 25
Deep Listening | Feli Navarro
How can we listen to the complexity of the spaces we inhabit and the interrelations within them?
Deep Listening is a practice developed by pioneering musician and composer Pauline Oliveros, as an embodied way of listening in every conceivable way to everything around us. The practice includes body movement, sonic meditations, and performative experimentations, as well as attuning to the sounds of everyday life, nature, thought, imagination, and dreams. Through this approach, we stimulate our awareness of both external and internal sound environments, while engaging in improvisation, collaboration, and play to explore what listening can do when we expand its possibilities.
Led by Deep Listening practitioner Feli Navarro, this workshop will combine listening exercises with movement, and develop collective responses to text scores by Pauline Oliveros. Building on these experiences, participants will co-create their own text scores to share and perform with the group.
​​
Time:
11:00 - 16:00
​
​
​
Location:
Buitenplaats Brienenoord
Van Brienenoord 5, Rotterdam
13 April 25
Finding one’s voice in the echo of a city
Public Sharing Event
​​
Over the past five months collective Brownout, together with citizens and guest artists, has been developing the methodology of Resonant Cycles. Integrating vocal and listening practices across music, visual arts, theatre, and circus, we investigated how the voice, as vibration and agency, creates reverberations—forms of knowledge that reveal the dynamic relationships between human and non-human actors in the city, with a special focus on the river Maas.
​
During this event, you are invited to engage with the different tools and methods mapped out throughout the project—an opportunity to experience and reflect on the resonance of voices within the city’s landscape.
We look forward to sharing this with you!
​
Time: 17:00
​
Location:
Buitenplaats Brienenoord
Van Brienenoord 5, Rotterdam
Maud van den Beuken
characterizes her artistic practice by an investigative attitude in which she measures, scans and maps the landscape on a 1:1 scale. For the past seven years she has been specifically engaging with rivers and their water management.
By entering into close collaborations with, among others, dredging contractor Van Oord, Rijkswaterstaat, Martens & Van Oord and TU Delft, she implements a poetic view within the often binary terminology of water management. Several rivers have taken the focus so far, including the Kaveri River in India, the Mississippi River in the United States, the Elbe in Germany and the Maas in the Netherlands.
Her work positions itself both within the formal art context through sculptures, installations, maps, audio walks and videos, but also manifests itself primarily in contexts beyond such as mapping archives, public spaces, collaborations with municipalities, scientists, dredging companies and universities.
Her work has been exhibited internationally in EENWERK Gallery in Amsterdam (NL), United Nations Water Conference 2023 in New York (USA), Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam (NL), Jan van Eyck in Maastricht (NL), EIGHT/ΤΟ ΟΧΤΩ in Athens (GR) and the Department of Special Collections of the Utrecht University Library (NL).
Feli Navarro
Feli Navarro is an artist and performer working at the intersection of performance art, sound, listening practices, and expanded choreography.
His artistic research draws from ecology and posthumanism, questioning the nature/culture binary and the hegemony of humans and capitalism in the age of ecological exhaustion.
Navarro advocates for small actions that, through reverberation and echo, hold potential for agitation and resistance, even if the change is never explicitly perceived.
He is a professor of sound art at Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, a certified Deep Listening® facilitator, and recently completed an MA in Performance Practices at ArtEZ University.
Stephanie Pan
is a voice artist, composer, interdisciplinary maker, and performer. A mutating combination of theater/performance art/experimental, pop and classical music/improvisation/ controlled chaos, her work is visceral, passionate and intense, often exploring the limits of the body and voice.
Originally a classically trained singer, she now specializes in extended vocal techniques and has developed an idiosyncratic technique that moves freely between pure sound, belcanto, belting, and screaming.
Ms. Pan performs extensively internationally, having presented work at venues, platforms and festivals as varied as CTM Berlin, Sziget Festival, Rewire Festival, Young Vic Theatre London, La MaMa Theater NYC, BBC, IDFA, Dutch National Opera, Beursschouwburg Brussel, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, and Kunstmuseum Den Haag.
Collective Brownout
is a performance collective of multifaceted artists based in various locations across Central Europe, including the Netherlands, Germany, and Belgium. The group’s mission emphasizes the importance of nurturing connections between culture and nature, fostering relationships among humans and non-humans, and creating immersive experiences that blend sound, movement, and visual artistry. By embracing social collaboration, the collective transforms traditional artistic practices into dynamic, interactive processes that emphasize improvisation and experimentation.
Through their diverse expertise, Collective Brownout crafts performances that invite audiences to engage deeply with the art. They translate abstract ideas into tangible experiences, using thoughtful design and movement to enhance the emotional impact of their work. The name "Brownout" reflects the collective’s core philosophy: just as a brownout is a temporary shortage of electrical power, it serves as a reminder that resources are finite. The collective embraces a slower, more intentional approach to creativity, mindful of both personal and environmental resources consumption.
Sign up for the Deep Listening workshop here:
Limited space - register before the 25th of March