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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.

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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.

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Workshop in German language. For details see German Version.

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