I AM SEVERAL is an investigation into our identity and how it is ambiguous, wild and complex. After previous episodes in the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium, I’m changing the name into I AM MULTITUDES, deepening the concept and broadening the scope of this project, taking it to different places.
The research that I started in 2018, focuses specifically on singing and voice, in combination with text and movement using improvisation methods from Pauline Oliveiros, choir music and Viewpoints Technique. A video reportage on the project can be found here.
Participants are asked to share something of their inner world and daily contemplation, inspiration, concerns by keeping a diary. Through singing exercises, easy movement and by asking questions, I try to create a sense of community and connection. How can you, as a local community, form a common, inner voice? I record fragments of text and singing, working them into a soundscape. With additional video material, I create new work.
Aim of the project is to achieve, through movement and voice, a mental concentration in which performers and audience can find a pluriformal harmony. We’re looking to find that crossover point; the moment when you enter a group, when you lay off your individual voices to make place for a collective consciousness.
“I see myself as a fish in a stream; deflected; held in place; but I cannot describe the stream”
‘I am several’ is an investigation into our identity and how it is not clear but wild and complex. The live sound and contemporary dance piece focuses on the crossroads of an individual to a collective consciousness. How can a community form one common, inner tribe?
Concept and music: Marjolein van der Meer Choreography: Merel Franx Dancers: Ariel Hayun, Hannah Ackerman and Axier Iriarte
From the 8th to 21st May 2022, Marjolein Van der Meer was in residence at De Grote Post in Belgium. She continued to work on her project ‘I am several’ with a group of 14 women and one 8 year-old girl. ‘I am several’ is an investigation into our identity and how it is not unambiguous and clear, but wild and complex. The research in Ostend focused specifically on singing and voice. How can you as a local community form a common, inner voice?
I AM SEVERAL / Ik ben een aantal is the result of a six-month residency period at Fresh AIR Berlin. It is an audio installation + performance with three dancers (Hannah Ackerman, Ariel Hayun and Axier Iriarte), made in collaboration with choreographer Merel Franx. More information you’ll find on the website of Urban Nation / Fresh AIR.
I AM SEVERAL is an electronic music piece leading up to a contemporary dance performance, using a polyphony of voices. It is about the different people we can be, pluriformity versus surrender, the individual versus the group. Inspired by choir music, it combines sound and movement to create a sensuous experience of togetherness and extasy. This project is about finding ones voice, about being autonomous and the loneliness this can bring forth, but also about ways in which we are so elementary alike. Made in collaboration with choreographer Merel Franx.
Concept and music: Marjolein van der Meer Choreography: Merel Franx Dancers: Ariel Hayun, Hannah Ackerman and Axier Iriarte. Thanks to: Stiftung Berliner Leben, SoAP Maastricht, the technical team of Stiftung Berliner Leben, Sanne van Rijn, Ruth Benschop, Bart van den Eynde, Anne de Loos, Beatrijs Dikker, Malu Peeters, Raymond Deirkauf, Timo Tembuyser, Tanja Elstgeest, Leonie Clement, Joanna Simson and all co-residents.
«ABA» Air SALON: “I AM SEVERAL” – Marjolein van der Meer Tuesday, 20. Jul 2021, 16:00 to 17:00 Hr
Marjolein van der Meer during performance „Birth Days“ / concept & choreography by Remy Ugarte Vallejos / ABA WON #8, HdS, Berlin, 2021 Credits: Aleksander Komarov
In this one hour radio piece, Marjolein vd Meer takes you on a journey through inspirations and explorations around her latest project ‘I am several’ which she is currently realizing at Fresh A.I.R. Berlin. This hour will include choir pieces, hiphop and some of her own musical and textual experiments.
Marjolein van der Meer (The Netherlands, 1986) is a spoken word artist, a singer and musician, performer and director of performance. Loosely combining music, image and text she creates multi-layered songs, concepts and performances, soundscapes and audio pieces that reveal her way of looking at the world. Her work is playful and combines the abstract with daily life, trying to reach beyond the surface through building structures of language and music, using the subconscious, poetry and movement. Together with musician Raymond Deirkauf, Marjolein has an electronic music duo called “I, poor romantic”. The duo released their first single “Cool, oh no Cool” in 2017 and an EP based on Grimm fairy tales in 2019. Grimm toured extensively through theaters in The Netherlands and Belgium. Marjolein van der Meer previously created performances for Frascati and de Brakke Grond in Amsterdam, NL. Her audio documentaries were broadcast on the Dutch national radio (Hollanddoc) and online through national newspaper NRC.
I AM SEVERAL is an electronic music piece leading up to a performance, using a polyphony of voices, from the inside and out, to address diversity. It is about the different people we can be, pluriformity versus surrender, the individual versus the group. The piece uses everyday situations, sounds and movement to create a certain unity, a choir of people in which each individual’s autonomy can be reflected. This project is about finding ones voice, about being autonomous and the loneliness this can bring forth, but also about ways in which we are so elementary alike. Made in collaboration with choreographer Merel Franx.
ABA Air SALON is a radio format produced by Air Berlin Alexanderplatz, a Berlin based artist initiative dealing with the distribution and documentation of forms of collective and experimental knowledge production. The broadcasts come from different locations in Berlin where we organize salons. At these salons we meet with local actors, artists, scientists and other cultural producers to exchange around research based artistic projects and practices. You can find more information about our program at http://www.airberlinalexanderplatz.de
ABA (Air Berlin Alexanderplatz) e.V., is a research-oriented artists’ initiative founded in Berlin in 2009 by the artists Susanne Kriemann & Aleksander Komarov. The programme focuses on ephemeral artistic research and collective and experimental knowledge production. ABA’s operations consist of the conception, curation and implementation of various presentational formats: The organization of salons in different locations acros the city, the release of publications, the stewardship of a residency-program and the maintenance of a website as a central place for documentation and achivation of these forms of ephmeral knowledge production.
I AM SEVERAL is an electronic music piece leading up to a performance, using a polyphony of voices, from the inside and out, to address diversity. It is about the different people we can be, pluriformity versus surrender, the individual versus the group. The piece uses everyday situations, sounds and movement to create a certain unity, a choir of people in which each individual’s autonomy can be reflected. This project is about finding ones voice, about being autonomous and the loneliness this can bring forth, but also about ways in which we are so elementary alike. Made in collaboration with choreographer Merel Franx.
marjoleinvdmeer 