Description:
Every year the Erasmus College organises ‘Ludieke Week’ or ‘Projectweek’ in May. Not the standard educational programme, but a creative or sportive schedule replaces the regular courses. Students have the chance to get acquainted with new fields and subject matters and get the chance to develop new skills. The senior students are abroad, whereas the juniors sign up for workshops. Together with CKV coordinator Dorothea de Jong (Erasmus College), the Digital Art Lab offered the Erasmus juniors 2 workshops. The 4 day workshops ‘Digitaal Danstheater’ and ‘Sound Machines’ both presented their end results at the end of day 4.

Digitaal Danstheater

The Digitaal Danstheater workshop is similar to the one in the Krokusvakantie and is part of the bigger Digitaal Danstheater production. This version of the workshop consisted of 4 sessions of 4 hours. This gave us plenty of time to experiment and try out different choreographies. The participants group was entirely made up of girls – 12 in total – with little dance experience.

Every workshop session started with a warming up in the dance studio. Dance teachers Nicolet Sudibyo (classical ballet) and Timothy Kok (hiphop) together with Patching Zone coach Loes Bogers (salsa) put together excercises in difference dance styles. In these warming up sessions participants enhanced their movement vocabulary and created their own choreographies.

The sessions formed the basis for the rest of the workshop where the participants were asked to design their own choreography that incorporated interactive images. Together with the workshop leaders, the participants had to develop an imagery interaction concept: how do dancer and interactive image relate to one another? This concept was then translated into dance and refined in following sessions. This eventually resulted into 1 performance where the 2 interaction concepts (1. ballet & 2. hiphop) came together. The hard work paid off: a beautiful end performance was made.

Sound Machines

This workshop was an extension of previous synthesizer workshops. Patching Zone coach Berit Janssen together with ceramics teachers Heike Rabe spend a lot of their energy on designing different kinds of synthesizers using simple electronic parts and Arduino micro controllers. In this 4 day workshop participants learned what a synthesizer is, how it´s build and how it generates sound waves. The participants were taught how to build their own synthesizer by making an oscillator (e.g., an oscillator is an electric circuit that produces repetitive electronic signal). Gradually they learned how each component affected the synthesizer´s musical output. By exploring the technical construction of a synthesizer and building their own synthesizers, participants learn to understand the workings of a synthesizer.
A lot of time was reserved for experimentation. This allowed the participants to explore the creative possibilities of the sound machines. They not only connected their synths to their phones, but also played around with sound visualisations by programming LED lights.

Details
May 9, 10, 11 & 12 ( 4 x4 hrs.)
Participants: 23 subjects, 14-16 years old

Tags digitaal danstheater erasmus event ludieke week projectweek sound machines