Oral Acrobatics – Experimental Literature and Vocal Improvisation

12. Januar 2001, 20:49 Uhr

Einladung ins Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY als „Visiting Professor“.
Intensivkurs, offen für alle interessierten Studenten. Als Seminarabschluß bestand für die Teilnehmer die Aufgabe, eine 1-stündige öffentliche Aufführung zu organisieren und mit eigenen Beiträgen zu füllen. Die Ergebnisse waren fantastisch.

Ankündigungsplakat auf dem Campus. Bernd Seydel (ganz links) mit einigen der Studenten.

Discover your innermost octaves this Intersession under the instruction of DADA-meister Bernd Seydel.

Experimental poetry at the beginning of the twentieth century took its inspiration from language in the most literal sense, from the primal attraction of sounds and rhythms unmoored from rational meaning.

Dada (1916-1920) was the first major literary movement to explore speech as pure sound. In 1916 Hugo Ball premiered his famous sound-poems at Cabaret Voltaire, an avant-garde den in Zurich, using the plastic qualities of speech to place his listeners under an onomatopoetic spell. Other artists soon followed suit, including Emmy Hennings, Hans Arp, Tristan Tzara, and Kurt Schwitters with his glorious „Sonata in Ur-Sounds,“ and eventually Dada provided the impetus for the Surrealist movement in France. American relatives include Gertrude Stein, and the scat-singing style in jazz that lies half-way between song and improvised speech.

The performance of Dada poems demands both skill and vocal training. In a very unique opportunity, Bard welcomes Germany’s most celebrated performer of Dada works, Bernd Seydel, who will be offering a seminar and workshop designed to hone the voice as a literary instrument. Activities will include voice training, lectures, and critical analyses of the literature and music of this experimental tradition. Participants in the seminar will discover for themselves not only the pleasures of vocal improvisation, but also the philosophical and artistic principles behind it. The seminar culminates in a public performance of Dadaist masterpieces, as well as, the participants‘ original work.

A basic knowledge of music and German is desirable but not required. Please note that this course is taught in an intensive format during the last two weeks of the intersession period, with two daily sessions of two hours. Four credits in German Studies or Integrated Arts. For more information see Prof. Franz Kempf (Aspinwall 301).