Witte de With's Class of '18 is pleased to present their first try-out event: A Playful Practice Seminar: Instrumental Thoughts On Bodies Performing.

This interactive seminar will explore the relationships between musician and instrument, and their effect on the experience of the performance. Kunsthalle for Music (26 January - 3 March 2018) re-imagines how music is presented through the context of an art institution, and this seminar will respond to these themes. Are the musician and the instrument one, and is playing always performance? And how does the audience affect these questions, and vice versa?

Dr. Luc Nijs, postdoctoral researcher at IPEM, University of Ghent, will discuss his research on the relationship between musician and instrument, and its impact on how performances are experienced. Accompanied by members of the Kunsthalle for Music ensemble, we will collectively think through this relationship in the context of the current exhibition. Does it, as Ari Benjamin Meyer's manifesto sets out, achieve "a dissolution of performer and audience, of rehearsal and performance?" And if so, how, and for whom?

A Playful Practice Seminar is aimed at both musicians and listeners, and will take an interdisciplinary, philosophical approach. There will be the opportunity to see the ensemble in action following the event, so that we can join them to see the Kunsthalle for Music and the relationship between musician and instrument in practice.

Program

11:00 - 11:30: Seminar by Luc Nijs
11:30 - 12:00: Conversation with Jackson Moore and Pau Marquès i Oleo, part of the Kunsthalle For Music ensemble
12:00 - 13:00: Coffee & tea break, with opportunity to see the ensemble's rehearsal
13:00 - onwards: Kunsthalle for Music exhibition performance (free entrance with ticket)

Although this event is free to attend, there are limited spaces available. Tickets via ticketlink.

About Class of '18

Class of '18 is a peer-led education programme that is part of Witte de With's Studium. Each year, a small group of students collaborate across academic and creative disciplines to bridge different fields of knowledge across higher education. Responding to the current exhibition programming of Witte de With, Class of '18 develops events around core concerns, by and for students.

Class of '18: Marjolijn van den Berg (Piet Zwart Institute), Honey Jones-Hughes (Piet Zwart Institute), Sophie Mak-Schram (Leiden University), Giulia Notarpietro (Erasmus University College), Esther Schaminée (AKV | St. Joost Breda), Damiët Schneeweisz (Leiden University College), Szu-Yi Wang (Piet Zwart Institute), June Yu (KABK The Hague).

About Studium Witte de With

Class of '18 is part of Studium Witte de With, the higher education platform for art and theory by Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art. Studium Witte de With is intended to serve as a catalyst bridging various fields of knowledge across higher education, exploring and mapping the cultural and political ecology of our time. It presents lectures, debates, workshops, and other programming in collaboration with partner institutes, to root firmly the program in the curriculums of Academies and Universities.