Masterclass “Multisensory Music Theater” with Athena Lange & Franziska Henschel, [in]operabilities

Title Masterclass: „Multisensory Music Theater“
Date: 13th and 14th of April 2024 (Saturday and Sunday) from 11 am until 4 pm
Venue: Un-Label Studio
Language: The workshop will be held in German sign language and German spoken language.

Masterclass “Multisensory Music Theater”
The two-day workshop “Multisensory Music Theater” will be led by Athena Lange and Franziska Henschel. Together with Benjamin van Bebber, Leo Hofmann and Jeanne Charlotte Vogt, they are part of the music theater collective [in]operabilities. The collective questions the accessibility of opera as an art form and researches music that cannot only be experienced through hearing. Through the interplay of light, physical expression, movement, touch, spoken and sign languages, the workshop invites participants to get to know new forms of music-making and musical performance and to further develop them for their own artistic practice. Which senses do we use to perceive music?
Workshop leaders Athena Lange and Franziska Henschel will report on their artistic practice, present multi-sensory compositional strategies and show instruments that make music visually and haptically tangible, and guide practical exercises.

There will also be space for discussion, exchange and questions.

The workshop is aimed at deaf, hard of hearing and hearing musicians and music theater makers, as well as cultural workers and interested parties. The workshop will be held in German sign language and German spoken language and will be interpreted.

Athena Lange completed her acting training at the acting school in Leipzig, which she completed in 2015 with the stage maturity examination. During and after her training, she acted in various theater and film productions, including at Filmstudio Babelsberg and in productions by Possible World e.V. Berlin. Lange went deaf at the age of 20. She lives in Berlin.

With „A Singthing“ Lange is one of three performers on stage and has developed an aria for the piece. In her performance, she reflects on her relationship to and memory of music and explores one of the most famous arias by opera singer Maria Callas.
The play will be performed on April 15 as part of the ORBIT – Festival for Contemporary Music Theater at the Cologne Opera. Further information at: https://en.orbit.cologne/

Franziska Henschel
Franziska Henschel writes, develops and directs plays for children and adults. She researches and teaches acting as a choreographic practice at the Theaterakademie Hamburg, among others, is a professor for interdisciplinary artistic practice and theory at MSH and develops aleatoric inspiration tools for artistic self-empowerment.

[in]operabilities
Athena Lange and Franziska Henschel, together with Benjamin van Bebber, Leo Hofmann and Jeanne Charlotte Vogt, are part of [in]operabilities – an artistic research project in contemporary music theater based in Hamburg. [in]operabilities links the art form of opera with the question of its accessibility. In the opera cosmos, artists and interdisciplinary researchers search for forms of multi-sensory music-making and interaction – for collective and individual “opera-abilities”.

ORBIT – Festival for Contemporary Music Theater
ORBIT is a new festival format in Cologne dedicated to experimental music theater in all its forms and colors. ORBIT stands for a genre that unites the various disciplines – music, theater, literature, dance and visual arts – on an equal footing and is characterized by collective, transdisciplinary work, experimental approaches, a willingness to take risks, radical thinking and topicality.

Under the artistic direction of Christina C. Messner and Sandra Reitmayer, ORBIT pursues the goal of restoring contemporary music theater to the position it had in Cologne for decades. Under the motto “Cooperation instead of competition”, ORBIT, with ON – Neue Musik Köln e.V. as its sponsor and in collaboration with the production office littlebit, pursues an intensive networking of the Cologne art scene in order to develop a supra-regional appeal.

Information:
Address: Un-Label Studio | Hosterstr. 1-5 | 50825 Köln-Neuehrenfeld
The Lenauplatz stop (accessible) on KVB line 5 (Dom / Hbf – Ossendorf) is located in the immediate vicinity of the Hosterstraße1-5 building.
Timetable (KVB)

Contribution towards expenses: 50€ |75€ | 95€ (according to self-assessment) per participant per weekend

Accessibility: All event rooms are accessible and assistance dogs are welcome. If required, we can provide the following assistants, please indicate this when registering:

• Interpreting into German Sign Language (DGS))
• Work assistance or mobility assistance on site

For questions and further information write to: masterclasses@un-label.eu

Phone +49 (221) – 5501544
info@un-label.eu

Photo Credit: singthing_© Robin Hinsch