Embodying listening. Enchanting the earth.
Movement and voice in the nature.
Franco Zita, Nico Tedesco and Elaisa Sardella


photo Thomas Demyttenaere

The workshop is oriented to develop a state of attention, receptiveness and listening of our vital rhythms. This will be the starting point of the work aimed to meet the natural environment with movement and voice.

The work on the body is based on fundamentals of martial art, and it is focused on the research of a clear, essential movement, in such a way that the alignement of our intentions and actions is achieved. By means of Chi Kung practice the attention will be focused on the mobility of the spine, that is the expressive center of our body. We’ll do less in terms of voluntary and muscular effort, and more in a sensorial level, for increasing our The practice that will be carried out during these days starts from well known movements and sounds to explore something new and unknown that will be suggested by the region surroundings taking the red  soil, the wind  and other natural elements as source of inspiration. perception and creating a sharp and clean movement.
In the training we’ll explore solo, duet and group movement.
 
The voice training will be focused  on the exploration of the breathing and of organs used during phonation, with the aim of discovering the ability of our body to produce sounds through our vocal cords. The workshop will integrate the study of traditional songs, both monodic and polyphonic  ones,  with traditional dances from different part of the world as a daily practice.

The workshop will be carried out inside, in a wooden floor studio, as well as exploiting  different natural locations of surrounding areas: a stone amphitheatre, the country all around, the seaside and the typical local stone architecture. Short incursions into as an example caves, close to ancient olive trees groves, “trulli”, etc. are also planned.

The three teachers will integrate their propositions in a 6 hours per day training.
The workshop is open to everybody who wants to explore and improving its voice and possibility of movement; it’s not required a specific musical or dance competence.

Nico Tedesco and Elaisa Sardella Nico and Elaisa have the passion for their land in common. Nico is biologist, Elaisa a chemist whose interest, beyond  their works, is mainly devoted to the rituality of the traditional expressions like dancing and singing that are integral parts of the land in which they live. Since 1981, Nico devoted himself to the study of natural environment. During his  work he developed a deep knowledge of places and nature of south Italy as attested by the several books and other publications that he co-authored on this topic. Since 1999 Nico and Elaisa gave much attention to folk dance and folk  music. They attended several festivals, seminars and  workshops held by several folk dancers which came from different parts of the world. For several years they taught  a traditional dance from “salento” named  “pizzica pizzica”. They studied folk and baroque singing with different teachers like Gabriella Schiavone, Marco Berrini, Germana Giannini, Imke McMurtrie, Anna Cinzia Villani. For  four years they were part of the chorus Florilegium Vocis and they gave performances of several concerts of baroque music and of “La Misa Flamenca”  with Paco Pena’ and his ensamble. Nico and Elaisa advanced their studies by means of the “functional voice training” proposed by Gisela Rohmert and of natural singing techniques. During these last years Nico and Elaisa taught vocality at international festivals of folk dance and music like Zingaria and Capodanze. Since 2007 they organize courses of vocality with a weakly appointment titled “dare corpo alla voce” .

Photo Tinu Hettich

Franco Zita Tai Chi and Chi Kung teacher since 1994, he's Craniosacral therapist (ITCS Roma e Craniosacral Therapy Educational Trust, Londra), dancer and performer, in the last 20 years he participated and created performance and projects in improvisation and dance theatre in Italy and Europe. His training in improvisation and instant composition started in the '80es with Institutet for Skenkost, and teatro Nucleo, and continued with teachers like Ornella d’Agostino, Katie Duck and Julyen Hamilton. He studied several years with the pioneers of contact improvisation, amongst the others, Nancy Stark Smith, Kirstie Simson, K.J. Holmes, Patricia Kuypers and dance theatre with Julie Stanzak, Benedicte Millet (Cie Pina Bausch), Jordi Cortes Molina (DV8 Physical theater) He started his education in Aikido (Aikikai) in '84 and Kung Fu – Tai Chi (Traditional Kung Fu Academy ). He studied as well yoga  -(Iyengar method), Ayurvedic massage in India, and he pratices Authentic Movement, Experiental Anatomy, Feldenkrais. With Germana Siciliani they run Casina Settarte and they have been organizing in the last 15 years improvisation and videodance festivals, research projects, in collaboration with different institution of Apulia region, where they live.

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