Can conscious listening spark radical change?
30.10.2024, 19:00 CET,
online (click for the Zoom link)
JULIE BEAUVAIS
Julie Beauvais is an opera director, transdisciplinary artist and educator based in Switzerland and India. Her body of work ranges from theater, choreography and opera to field research, community projects and new forms of opera. Her creations exploring open architecture, conscious movement, and radical listening have been presented and exhibited internationally since 2001.
After graduating from Ecole Jacques Lecoq in Paris in 2000, Beauvais co-founds several companies in the United States, in Switzerland and in Denmark. For seven years, she explores forms of epic theatre in diverse political contexts. The work leads to long term collaborations with Brazilian, Mongolian, and Nicaraguan companies.
In 2006, she begins staging operas and soon focuses on the contemporary repertoire. She creates a platform for her experiments by founding BadNewsFromTheStars*, a transdisciplinary laboratory of innovative convergences to explore and deepen the art of listening. Together with her collaborators, Beauvais explores new perspectives on trans-territorial cooperation for sustainable development in the context of emerging challenges and shifting paradigms.
Since 2018, she directs The Witness, a postactivist opera weaving together the Earth's changing messages and the voices of indigenous wisdom holders. From 2020 to 2022, she founds and co-directs Sonic Matter – Experimental Music Platform based in Zurich. In 2021, she initiates ALTER- Altitude Laboratory I Transition Experiments I Research, a high-altitude residency program nurturing collaboration among artists, researchers and local inhabitants that responds to environmental crises in high-mountain communities.
CHAOBA THIYAM
Chaoba Thiyam is a multidisciplinary artist and an independent researcher from the state of Manipur in Northeast India. He is the creative director of an art-space called SIYOM and heads a folk music ensemble under the same name. Conceptualized as a space, SIYOM symbolizes the womb, the wellspring of creative spirit. It is an inspirational space, a confluence of creative forces encompassing the whole range of art forms, from the traditional to the unconventional, from the structured to the experimental.
With a passion for archiving the Manipuri folk narratives and oral traditions, he engages in diverse interdisciplinary activities, through the development of the local artistic community to promote and preserve the rich cultural heritage of Manipur. He has worked and connected with younger artists and the vibrant pool of youth for the transmission of folk wisdom through activities such as listening sessions, dialogues, visual and audio documentation, music interaction and performances, and environment consciousness.
As part of his project Resilient Roots and Healing Hearts, he is dedicated to humanitarian and social work pertaining to various issues existing in the society. Through his music and art-based activities, he connects with the people at disability homes, de-addiction centres, orphan and old-age homes, and relief camps in an effort to make the healing process and transformative journey possible.