OPEN CALL
Professional-level training and performance opportunities in Voice and MovementSound Body
with Zornitsa Stoyanova (BUL/USA)
& Peter Sciscioli (USA)
20, 21 & 22 Nov.
with a show on 23 Nov. 2024
in Sofia, Bulgaria
Sound Body
Workshop and Performance in SOFIA, BULGARIA.
Sound Body is a workshop and a new performance project co-created by Peter Sciscioli (USA) and Zornitsa Stoyanova. (USA/BUL)
Open to dancers, actors, and vocalists interested in the full range of the dancing/sounding body. Welcoming all ages from 18 to 99.
Working with movement/dance and voice on equal terms, Peter and Zornitsa investigate ideas of the sound body, as the healthy, thinking, reasoning body.
Peter is deeply influenced by his work with Meredith Monk and Zornitsa often works with tools and modalities learned from Deborah Hay, Jeanine Durning and the Emergent Improvisation Project.
Full description of the Sound Body project
Workshop
co-taught by Zornitsa Stoyanova and Peter Sciscioli
These sessions will begin with a movement warm-up, tuning in to how we breathe and how breath can move through the body as an opener, an expressive tool, and a starting point for making any sound.
From there, we’ll guide us through a practice of moving vocal/physical vibration into different parts of our bodies to discover and open resonance in some of its myriad forms. Shaping and sculpting our breath and sound with the throat/tongue/teeth/lips, we’ll look to access greater ease in speaking with our whole bodies. We’ll also approach singing while moving/dancing as a way to expand resonance. Our workshops will conclude with improvisational scores integrating voice and movement, which have been developed over 20 years of research Zornitsa and Peter have done in improvisation for performance.
Peter Sciscioli’s work with voice is informed by years of study and engagement in voice, music, movement, and energy work. Framed by his early training in Western European classical violin and opera, sports and American Musical Theater, and later in contemporary dance, global theater traditions, Experimental Vocal Techniques, and Qi-gong.
Zornitsa Stoyanova’s approach to movement and voice, comes from 20 years as a performer and improviser, developing ways to work with devised text and melody in the voice and body.
Their exercises and approaches have been learned from working with Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble (extended vocal techniques), Jane Comfort, Deborah Hay, and Jeanine Durning (text and movement), Daria Faïn (Qi-gong and locating sound within the body), as well as Emergent Improvisation Ensemble, Simone Forti, and Susan Rethors (choreography in space and with an ensemble).
Performance Project
co-created by Zornitsa Stoyanova and Peter Sciscioli with the performers
Premiere 23 November 19:30 at The Red House, Sofia, Bulgaria.
Sound Body is an innovative dance/voice project created by Zornitsa Stoyanova and Peter Sciscioli (USA) and presented by BodyMeld.
Following the methodologies of “devised theatre” and instant voice and dance composition, Zornitsa and Peter, work as co-authors, raising questions about the complex processes of democracy.
What does utopia mean? What does it mean for everyone to have a voice?
Is there hope in democratic processes and can we look at them both sincerely and with a little irony?
Working from the idea of a “healthy/sound/reasoning body”, the team brings to light the situations between people here and now. The moment of meeting the audience becomes the starting point of the performance. Sound Body will integrate movement and voice in improvisational and set scores, working with interaction and looking to create a playful, yet democratic system of social choreography.
Performers with BodyMeld, part of the Sound Body project are also Nikolay Burzakov and Yulia Zidarova. The participants in the performance project will work with Peter and Zornitsa as well as Nikolay and Yulia.
Sound Body Workshop
Immerse yourself in our morning workshop offering different techniques and scores in using the voice with/along/and in conversation with the dancing moving body.
This workshop is open to all experiences. Peter and Zornitsa will lead the group in a personal approach offering time for individual research.
20th Nov. – 10:00 – 12:30
21st Nov. – 10:00 – 12:30
22nd Nov. – 12:00 14:30
To reserve your spot, just follow to payment links:
Discount price for students, or people living and working in Eastern Europe.
Early bird, sign up by Nov. 4th
Regular Price
Sound Body Workshop & Performance Opportunity
Join our team of performers in a unique opportunity to work on and create a performance together.
Open to professional and semi-professional performers with previous experience in voice, acting or dance. We invite you to join us and play with scores, find new ways to structure interactions with the audience, and shape the Sound Body Performance together.
20th Nov. – 10:00 – 12:30 & 13:30 – 16:00
21st Nov. – 10:00 – 12:30 & 13:30 – 16:00
22nd Nov. – 12:00 – 14:30 & 17:00 – 20:00
23rd Nov. – 17:00 – 21:00 Premiere
Discount price for students, or people living and working in Eastern Europe.
Early bird, sign up by Nov. 4th
Regular Price
BIOGRAPHIES
Peter Sciscioli (pronounced sh-SHOL-ee, he/him/his) is a Brooklyn-based interdisciplinary performer, creator, educator, and producer whose work encompasses dance, music, theater, and film.
Since 1997 he has been creating performance works through a choreographic lens with a wide variety of collaborators for concert, site-specific, and theater venues around the world. In 2008, he created Peter Sciscioli Performance Projects, and in 2012 founded the International Interdisciplinary Artists Consortium, a network of artists and producers working across disciplines and cultures.
Peter has worked extensively with composer/singer/director Meredith Monk since 2003 in a variety of capacities including performer, rehearsal assistant, workshop coordinator, and producer. He is a co-founder of The M6: Meredith Monk Music Third Generation, helping to preserve Ms. Monk’s extraordinary musical legacy. He has also performed in work by such luminaries as Matthew Barney and Jonathan Bepler, Ping Chong, DD Dorvillier, Daria Faïn, Philip Glass and Mary Zimmerman, Susan Marshall, Fiona Templeton, and as a member of Jane Comfort and Company (2004-2010) in U.S. and European venues including BAM, Barbican Centre, City Center, Goodman Theatre and The Joyce Theater. From 1996-2002, Peter was also a performer and choreographer with the Chicago Moving Company and Hedwig Dances in Chicago, Illinois.
Peter’s interdisciplinary works and collaborations have been presented throughout New York City and Chicago; in Alaska, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Mexico, North Carolina, Utah, and Vermont; and in Brazil, Honduras, Croatia, North Macedonia, and Mexico. He has been a resident choreographer at The Yard, White Oak Plantation, Earthdance, the National School of Dance in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, and the Zagreb Student Center-Culture of Change in Croatia. Peter has also received support from the U.S. Embassy Tegucigalpa, BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Dance Theater Workshop/New York Live Arts, Movement Research, and the Trust for Mutual Understanding for his work and projects.
As a teacher, Peter has offered his Voice as Movement classes and workshops since 2009 at Duke University, MIT, National Center for Arts in Mexico City, Oberlin College (his alma mater), Pratt Institute, Stanford University, Trinity College, University of Maryland and University of Utah, as well as in the capacity of LEIMAY LUDUS Guest Teacher (2016-2017) at CAVE in Williamsburg, and as the voice teacher for the Trinity/La MaMa Performing Arts Semester program (2011-2016), and Wooster Group Summer Institute (2019-2022) in New York. In 2017 he co-initiated The Sounding Body series at Movement Research. Peter has also given vocal coaching to company members of such choreographers as Jane Comfort, ECHOensemble, Milka Djordjevich, Maré Hieronimus, LEIMAY, Thea Little, Juliana F. May/MAYDANCE, Elisabeth Motley, Edisa Weeks/Delirious Dances and Yackez (Larissa and Jon Velez-Jackson).
Since Summer 2012, Peter has served as curator and facilitator of the International Interdisciplinary Artists Consortium residency and Moving Arts Lab (2013-2021) at Earthdance in Western Massachusetts. In 2022, the residency shifted to a new location in upstate New York, and the renamed Interdisciplinary Arts Lab has taken place at Movement Research in New York.
Currently, Peter continues his work as Communications/Education Consultant for Meredith Monk, teaches his Voice as Movement classes through Movement Research and with other organizations, offers private lessons and coaching, and develops his research at home, virtually, and abroad.
Zornitsa Stoyanova (USA/BUL) is an award-winning performance artist, curator, writer, lighting, and video designer. Based between Sofia, Bulgaria, and Philadelphia, US, she directs her company BodyMeld which along with presenting her work, focuses on creating programs in support of independent choreographers in both her locales.
Her stage, video, and photographic work use the female body as an abstract object revealing ideas of strength in female sensuality and emotionality. On stage, she explores the power dynamics between dancers and audiences, and personal stories using vulnerability as a strength. Her esthetics merge the mundane with the fantastical and futurist sci-fi imagery. Since 2013 an overarching theme in her work has been exposing the “otherness” living within us, as a way to recognize that all humans are the same. Since 2020, she has been researching a movement and speaking practice she calls Brutal Honesty – that has the goal of not censoring oneself. Zornitsa is presently writing her dissertation on emergent composition in dance, language, and voice to complete her Master of Choreography degree in the Netherlands.
In September of 2024, she premiered her new solo Brutal Honesty at Fringe Arts and Cannonball festivals in Philadelphia, USA. Her performance AndroMeda was commissioned and presented by The Philadelphia Museum of Art (2020), and her solo performance Explicit Female (2016) was awarded a “Rocky” – the Philadelphia contemporary dance award. Her choreographic work has been shown at festivals around the U.S., in Bulgaria, and in France.
Since moving back to Bulgaria in 2020, Zornitsa has presented her work, at the Antistatic Festival, Era of Aquarius Festival in Burgas, Leap Off Page Festival in V. Turnovo, Alternative Stage Festival in Pancharevo, as well as the ongoing touring duet with Megan Bridge called “Altered States: a performance conversation”(2021) in Etud Gallery as well as the international co-creation project “The Hidden Level”(2022) presented at National Student House both in Sofia.
As a dancer, she has performed for Eiko & Koma, Boris Charmatz, Sasha Waltz, Cie. Willy Dorner, Lionel Popkin, Group Motion, Zhana Pencheva, Brain Store Project, and others. Her screendance films have been shown across the U.S. and in Mexico, Argentina, Uruguay, Bulgaria, Ireland, Germany, Austria, and Bangladesh.
Zornitsa is also a supporter of a sustainable dance community and is deeply invested in helping further conversation and collaboration. As BodyMeld she values the exchange of ideas and sharing of methodologies, rigorous research, and experimentation in the field of performance. She strives to create a community curious and excited about the blending of genres in performance, experimentalism, and surviving and thriving in hard political climates. She teaches improvisation techniques for performance, dance on camera, and composition and has done so in Philadelphia, France, Hungary, her native Bulgaria, and now online. Zornitsa is also an editor for thINKingDANCE.net and a mother of two. www.bodymeld.org
Location and staying in Sofia, Bulgaria:
All workshops are at the National Student House in the city center of Sofia. The premiere will be at The Red House.
Unfortunately, we do not offer any financial assistance at this time. All proceeds from the workshop go directly toward covering the cost of travel and stay of Peter. If you are struggling with money, but want to do this project, please write directly to Zornitsa Stoyanova at zornitsa(at)bodymeld.org to ask about other possible arrangements.
Cost of staying in Sofia:
Generally, an Airbnb one-bedroom apartment for single people or a couple in Sofia is about 30 Euros per night and is a bit more expensive in the center of the city.
You can find two-bedroom apartments for around 40 to 45 Euro per night to share with another person.
In Sofia, if you go out to the center to a nice restaurant you can expect to pay anywhere from 20 to 50 Euro per person, depending on alcohol consumption and the restaurant. Outside of that you can comfortably cook at home and spend 10 Euro a day on mostly vegetarian food.
Sofia is a 2 mil. people city with many districts, a great metro, and tons of public transportation. In general, is quite easy to get to the center if you choose an apartment in one of the cheaper districts.
Sound Body is made possible with the support from Sofia Municipality – office of Culture.