DIY: 2010 – Fiona Templeton The Eavesdroppers’ Choir

A found-live-language speaking choir, based on a 3 1/2-day intensive collaborative workshop to explore techniques of gathering, creating forms with and improvising live with found language.

We will first move back and forth between public sessions – listening to and gathering this material – and private – exploring techniques of working with the material in various forms: musical, such as rounds; poetic, such as sestina; visual, such as collage, etc. We will do this individually and as a group, again listening, creating layers, hockets, group sentences, and jams. Then we’ll take the Choir back to the streets to practice its results in situ, both with previously generated material and using the language of the immediate surroundings.

Not only will participants garner a range of specific techniques, but the workshop hopes, for those with less experience, to introduce a 21st century of innovative language, from the Text Festival to KriKri to Ubuweb to Flarf; and for all concerned, to open a future of live language, of which the workshop will have been an eavesdrop in the ocean.

Dates, times and location(s):
Bury Art Gallery & Museum and other Text Festival venues
(a tram ride from central Manchester)
From a Thursday evening to a Sunday afternoon – the weekend 16-19 September 2010.
Thursday 6-9; Friday and Saturday 10-9; and then Sunday 10-5.

Application procedure:
The Eavesdroppers’ Choir is open to all language artists, both with and without experience, but specifically interested in the materiality of language and its multiform occurrence in the world. English will be the language of instruction and discussion, but in the work of the Choir the use of languages other than English would be welcome.

The application should include 2 attachments: a CV; and a statement of interest including any relevant experience. Also note in your email any time conflicts, though participants would be expected to commit for the full period. Send email applications only to [email protected]by Friday 16 July, 2010. You will hear back in about 10 days.

The artist: 
Fiona Templeton is a poet, director, performance/installation artist and teacher. She is director of the performance group, The Relationship, based in New York and London, which specialises in site-specific work, innovative language and exploring relations to the audience. Books and performances include The Medead (a performance epic), L’Ile (a citywide performance commissioned for Lille 2004), You-The City (an intimate Manhattanwide play for an audience of one), Cells of Release (an installation in an abandoned penitentiary), Delirium of Interpretations(on Camille Claudel), and Mum in Airdrie (poetry). Her current work involves Bluebeard and ventriloquism.
www.fionatempleton.org / www.therelationship.org

This DIY project is supported by The Text Festival in Bury, an internationally recognised event investigating contemporary language art (poetry, text art, sound and media text, live art). This DIY project is one of the launch activities leading up to the third Text Festival (April-July 2011) –www.textfestival.com