For the registration form and the organizational details, please scroll down!

Event in German language. Fort details see German version.

Details || Registration form

The Minako Seki Method departs from imagination and the endless possibilities of it. Through imagination we can connect consciousness with unconsciousness, as well as micro cosmos with macro cosmos. Imagination is our creative impulse and our motor for artistic expression. During the workshop we use the power of imagination as a main source, to evoke our senses and create natural quality in the physical principles of movement.

Basic Principles of the Seki Method:

• Sense Power: Exercises that will bring us to release inhibitions, awaken the mind-body connection, deepen our breath and warm our bodies.

• Hanging Body: In reaction to the gravity force, we experience that in our reality everything is falling down in the direction of the center of the earth. Like the objects, when we walk each step is falling in to the middle of earth. Experiencing how easy is to walk, we can feel this effortless sensation in all our movements. By using gravity, we can generate all movements as they would come out of the relaxed body; using it as a powerful impulse and motor of movement. We are all hanging from the earth.

• Water bag body: Based on the biological fact that our body contains over 80% water, we try to move our body as it would be a big water bag. We observe and experience the properties of a bag felt with water to apply them to our bodies. We can feel that when we are relaxed, we are able to react to the impulses and to all what surrounds us and find a very intense quality of movement. When we let go our body fall in the direction of gravity, we will get automatically a bouncing reaction. The re-bounce reaction of a fall is the dynamic of the dancing body.

• Tan Den: My source of energy is a little sun, that is situated in the centre of my body (in Japanese called Tan-Den). Through this little sun there is a thin thread, that on one end passes up through the crown of our skull all the way to the cosmos and on the other end is pulled straight to the centre of the earth. Locating and feeling this line is what will help us to bring all the mentioned principles together.

• Meditation: Every morning we will practice Vipassana meditation technique learned from Ajhan Tong Sirimangalo. This meditation involves mindful bowing, mindful walking, mindful sitting. The movements can be extended to any activity, for example as a working meditation, for creating or improvising. We observe the perception of our senses, thinking and feeling and hereby we practice to concentrate our mind on the moment (here and now) as well as becoming aware of our patterns, to be able to break them if required. The resulting presence is the basis for all further workshop contents.

In times of Corona, special rules also apply in the exploratorium, which are summarized here.

For the organizational details, please scroll down!

Mostly in German language – other languages are welcome.

At this Open Stage, poetic texts and music meet in a space for improvisation. Everyone who feels like participating musically, poetically or recitatively is invited to playfully explore such modes of encounter. Other forms of improvisation (e.g. dance, painting, or performing arts) are also welcome in creative exchange.

Texts – please bring copies if possible – can be poems, poetic fragments or improvised speech.

Percussion instruments and a grand piano are available.

Upcoming dates until January 2023
01.07. | 26.08. | 07.10. | 11.11. | 02.12. | 20.01.

Current Corona regulations: We ask for daily updated tests. Masks at own option.

Details

In the course of this workshop, we develop a sound and shadow play with the children, in which they go on a journey of discovery through the world of light and sound waves. We will visit flatland, where the two-dimensional flatland creatures live and experience with them the discovery of the wondrous three-dimensional world of changing things.

There, shadows start to move, grow larger and begin to transform. A winged animal gradually becomes a ship.
How is this illusion created? And what happens next? The children turn and move their three-dimensional objects behind the shadow wall, observe the changing shadows and develop their own stories from them.

In the process, they playfully explore what planes, bodies and projections are all about.
What sounds are in the things around us? Which ones do we find exciting? And what is it that is actually vibrating?

Musical improvisations are developed from everyday materials and simple instruments that we make sound.
Together we will try out how light and sound interact and affect us.

This workshop was developed by the project team “Mathe x Kunst” of ” Die Lernwerkstatt – lernen und lernen lassen e.V.”  with the exploratorium berlin as cooperation partner.

No previous knowledge is necessary. This course is held in German language, but we can adapt to non-german speakers.
   

All Corona regulations which are currently valid in the exploratorium can be found here.

Details

In both halls of the exploratorium, visitors young and old can discover mysterious sounds and shadows.

In room 1 (staircase C), the KlangSpielFeld awaits you – we will explore dark tones and brightly shining sounds and create a night in the sound forest together. A guided improvisation game will take place at 17:30, 18:30, 19:30 and 20:30 – in between you are free to explore the crazy instruments of the exploratorium. No previous musical experience is necessary.

In room 2 (staircase D) there is an open offer of shadow plays to participate in – objects are created from paper and we bring them to life in the shadows. What kind of stories do our shadows experience in the World of Change?

All regulations currently valid in the exploratorium are summarized here.

Details

(The workshop is held in German language.)

We open a box with you – you decide what you find inside – and the game begins.
What can be in such a box, hide there or squeeze out? A secret? A funny music or a scary sound? An animal or something unspeakable?
Based on your ideas, we develop in small groups a little story around your box, working with voice, singing and instruments, body percussion, elements of pantomime, improvisation and with your imagination!

The 5-hour workshop will be led by director Teresa Reiber and musician Kathrin von Kieseritzky.

All corona regulations currently valid in the exploratorium can be found here.

In German language.

For more details on the Reading Circle Improvisation, please see German version.

Participation is only possible with pre-registration using the registration form below or by e-mail to Mathias Maschat. Registration for the upcoming date should be made by the evening before, Monday, October 10.

Dates until January 2023
Tuesday 28.06.: 11.10. | 08.11. | 13.12.2022 | 17.01.2023
18.00–19.30

Facilitator: Mathias Maschat
E-mail to Mathias Maschat

Admission free, registration required

For the registration form and the organizational details, please scroll down!

John Cage said, “A sound is perceived as disturbing – unless you listen to it.”

R. Murray Schafer went even further in 1971 in his study The Tuning of the World and recognized the sounds of our everyday environment as essential for the well-being and even the health of human beings. To improve and stabilize the quality and balance of these regular consonances of soundscapes (sonic landscapes) is the main concern of the worldwide movement of “acoustic ecology”.

The explo-soundwalks are relaxed excursions into the varied “symphony of everyday life”. The group undertakes a listening journey through various interesting sounding places around the exploratorium.

The soundwalks take place before one of our concerts and will be scheduled so that all participants are back in the exploratorium right in time for listening to the concert.

Dates until January 2023
Thu 07.07. | Thu 01.09. | Thu 13.10. | Thu 17.11. | Fri 27.01.

No special corona rules apply outdoors. However, we recommend keeping a distance from each other.

Reservation

Maggie Nicols (GB) – voice, tap dance
Caroline Kraabel (US/GB) – saxophone, voice
Charlotte Hug (CH) – viola, voice

Caroline Kraabel and Charlotte Hug share a vocal-musical elemental force with the vocal pioneer Maggie Nicols. Diva and clown, madness and profundity – everything is possible, but the performance is always authentic and original. Together, the three voices abandon the preconceived and tap into the directness of the pre-verbal. “There is sensitivity and softness, tempered by an approach that eschews limits so that surprises abound. At times the instruments seem like props for the voice, but most of the time there is an egalitarian process, where all three merge as one. The ranges of all three are similar, too, weaving lines that meld and then unravel mysteriously.” (Steven Loewy, Cadence 2002) Their music “is pure gold”. (François Couture, All-Music Guide 2002)

Individually each of the three musicians pursues distinct artist endeavours. Charlotte Hug’s solo work explores the performance potential of unusual; Caroline Kraabel’s emphasizes the uniqueness of live performance whether with her group of 20 female saxophone players, Mass Producers, or her one-woman mixed-media performance pieces; and Maggie Nicols has a long and rich association with improvised music and workshop projects which explore the liberating, empowering and transformative potential of improvised music.

Maggie Nicols is a renowned pioneer of European improvised music (Feminist Improvising Group, Spontaneous Music Ensemble, Centipede, The Gathering etc.) with over forty years experience of improvisation in performance, life and teaching. She explores sound, the voice and creative energy in all their magical diversity. Caroline Kraabel is an improvising saxophonist and composer, conductor and creator of pieces for large improvising ensembles (London Improvisers Orchestra, Grand Groupe d’Improvisation Libre etc.). She explores methods allowing large groups of musicians to improvise together, skirting chaos in stimulating, fruitful and unusual ways. Charlotte Hug is a Swiss composer, performer and visual artist. She is internationally known for her innovative musical and visual improvised solo performances for viola, voice and interdisciplinary Son-Icons (sound-drawings). She has received a plethora of awards, including residencies in London, Paris, Berlin, Johannesburg and Shanghai.

On the days after the concert (October 14–16, 2022), Charlotte Hug will give our current special workshop: My Instrument: A Voice Unlimited – My Voice: An Instrument Unlimited

Admission: 15/12/8 € (normal price/reduced/Berlin-Pass)

19.00 soundwalk with Thomas Gerwin

The concert will also be streamed live via our YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/exploratoriumberlin

All currently valid Corona regulations in the exploratorium can be found here.

Details || Registration form

(The course is held in German language.)

This regular class is for children ages 6–10 who have a desire to move, dance, improvise.

Sculptures serve us as inspiration for our own body perception, personal expression and dance design this semester. We knead, shape, bend our bodies, are wiry, hard like stone, metal or ice, soft like clay, melt away and experience our skeleton as the framework of the body. We play with our balance, with gravity and lightness, with our endurance in staying in one posture – lying, sitting, standing.
We make SCULPTURES DANCE – for this we develop a dramatic content, in which we feel or invent the prehistory of a figure and “see” into the future. It could be a relief, a sculpture group or an independent figure doing its BEING.
We will also experiment with different materials such as plasticine, wire, paper/cardboard and the like to create small objects.

Everything we do is about FREE DANCE, so prior experience is not required.

 In times of Corona, special rules also apply in the exploratorium, which are summarized here.

Details || Registration form

The essential is invisible to the ears. Unless the eye can hear.

“Special Workshop” with Charlotte Hug for instrumentalists and singers interested in transdisciplinary collaboration.

Artistic translations and transdisciplinary references often show new entrances and ways into improvisation and creation. Through the playful audio-visual creativity method with Son-Icons, transdisciplinary references are revealed and tested.

Using the instrument as a creative voice and our own voice as a versatile sound instrument, we explore the individual blind spot of creation. The focus is on musical-vocal improvisations in the interstices of sound, gesture, language, image and beyond stylistic and cultural boundaries.

In the laboratory and with individual coaching, new musical discoveries are artistically sharpened and integrated into solo and ensemble playing. Three days of creation and improvisation with a lot of playfulness, systematics and inventiveness.

Charlotte Hug will be in concert with Maggie Nicols and Caroline Kraabel on Thursday 13 October.

The current Corona rules are summarized here.

Details

(Workshop in German language, participation for non-german speakers possible)

Can a whistle be blue or even orange? And what does a green triangle sound like? We experiment with sound, noise, color and shape and let our imagination run wild. No previous musical knowledge is necessary.
The 3-hour workshop will be led by artist Ynez de Zilón and musician Kathrin von Kieseritzky.

All regulations currently valid in the exploratorium are summarized here.

Details

(Workshop in German language, participation for non-german speakers possible)

Come, we´re bending tones! Together we discover the sound of microtonalities. With a live-played horn we experience how different accoustic vibrations can feel like and how they could look like. A weekend workshop for kids of 7-12 years.

To show the phenomenon of sound visually, we experiment with overhead projectors and play games with sound and space.

All currently valid Corona regulations in the exploratorium can be found here.

Details || Registration form

(Workshops are held in German language.)

We meet once a month to explore sounds and rhythms together – children and adults. Playing with different sound generators we dive into other worlds. And with our voices we give the drums a language and let them tell stories.

Dates September-January 2023

11.09. | 16.10. | 27.11. | 18.12. | 22.01.2023

Please enter your selected date(s) and desired group/time in the registration form below.     

All regulations currently valid in the exploratorium are summarized here.

For the the organizational details, please scroll down!

The Open Stage is an offer for experienced improvisers in music, dance and other arts. It provides the opportunity of monthly artistic explorations in varying adhoc ensembles, that we put together by chance. There are no restraints for playing, the performances emerge solely from mutual perception and (re)acting.
Everyone who has previous experience with free improvisation is welcome.

Listeners/spectators are welcome, too.

The dates until January 2023
29.05. | 26.06. | 28.08. | 18.09. | 16.10. | 13.11. | 18.12. | 15.01.

Registration not required

Current Corona regulations: We ask for daily updated tests. Masks at own option.

Details || Registration form

Workshop in German language. For details see German Version.

In times of Corona, special rules also apply in the exploratorium, which are summarized here.

For the organizational details, please scroll down!

Only in German language. For more details see German description.

Upcoming dates until January 2023
25.06. | 22.10. | 21.01.

All currently valid Corona regulations in the exploratorium can be found here.

Talk in German

Guest: Alessandro Bertinetto
Moderation: Mathias Maschat

More info soon.

Entrance fee: 5 €

Details || Registration form 

Workshop & discussion with Claudia Hoppe (Improvisation Theatre) and Rainer Stolz

Event in German language. For more information see German version.

The current Corona rules are summarized here.

Details

(Workshop in German language, participation for non-german speakers possible)

What does space sound like, what does a path sound like? What could space travel be in a room, in a studio or in a square?
In this two-day workshop, we cosmonauts wander through space and explore in-between spaces, paths and possibilities of movement, always on the trail of sound. Our compass are the senses. We use drumsticks to feel the surfaces of walls, floors, chairs, benches and all kinds of things and objects, creating rhythms, atmospheres and sound carpets.
We invent our own language, secret sound signs that we send to each other and explore concepts like vibration, resonance and silence. Our space parcours becomes a fantastic path that can only be wandered through playfully.

All currently valid Corona regulations in the exploratorium can be found here.

Details || Registration form

(The course is held in German language.)

In the five-day vacation intensive workshop, the children playfully develop scenes and characters. Their own stories from fantasy and everyday life are worked on artistically, i.e. with music, language and body.
In the small group constellation, they get to know new children and can reinvent themselves. In the group process, the children find compromises, learn consideration, acceptance and experience the success of a joint presentation at the end.
The children are accompanied by the actress Anna C. Ortmann.

All current Corona regulations in the exploratorium can be found here. zu finden.