Nina Rolle – Story Slam

Brussels Story Slam – What is a story slam?

A story slam is a community storytelling event that features true stories, told live. Oh yes, it is also a competition — open to anybody who has a 5-minute story to share on the evenings theme. Come share a story or just enjoy the show!

How it works:

We give you a theme.  YOU bring a story.

Five minutes tops.  Must be true. Told by heart.

1. Theme.  We like to choose themes that can be interpreted in a number of ways.  For example, stories on the theme of CRUSH can be about a childhood heart throb (first crush), or when you aced an exam (crushed it!), or totalled your car in an accident, or your favorite citrus flavored soft drink (orange Crush) or when you buckled under the weight ot pressure (that job crushed him), or when you were completely devastated (i was crushed!).
2. Must be true.  That means it’s YOUR story.  It happened to YOU, not your mother or neighbor or best friend.  Is hyperbole “true”? Yes. Is bad memory “true”? Absolutely!
3. Told by heart.  This simply means no notes. The challenge is to just stand at the mic and tell a story. Your story.  Some people find it helps them to write out their story in order to memorize it, others make a bullet list and remember the main points, others just know their story so well and have it so internalized that they need very little crafting.  Do what works for you.
4. Preparation. Contemplate the theme and let it spark a memory, then find your story on that theme and practice practice practice!  A five minute story is surprisingly short, so there is no time for a lengthy wind-up or philosophising. You need to start right in the action.  See www.storyslamboulder.com for storytelling tips.
5. Enter the Competition. When you arrive, put your name in the hat. Cross your fingers that your name gets picked! Ten lucky storytellers will be chosen from the hat and invited to come to the stage and wow us with their tales.
6. Judging.Yes, it’s true: we invite you to come and bare your soul with a personal story….then we judge you! Each audience member will receive a ballot (a.k.a. a slip of paper) to write down their favorite story/storyteller. Stories will be judged on how deftly you engage with the theme and stick to the time limit, but most importantly, on telling a darn good story with a little conflict, a resolution, a little suspense, and some good, juicy details.
7. What does the winner get?  Come and find out!!

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(lightly edited from https://www.ninarolle.com/story-slam)

About Truth Be Told Story Slam

Truth Be Told Story Slam was founded in February of 2013 in Boulder, Colorado by Nina Rolle and Johanna Walker, two performing artists who were inspired to create an ongoing performance series featuring true stories, well-told. A Boulder favorite since its inception, Truth Be Told has consistently played to sold-out houses, moving a community of fellow storytellers and story lovers to bring more stories into the world and onto the stage.

How it works: Truth Be Told invites audience members to enter their names in the hat with the hopes of being selected to tell a 5-minute, true-life story on a pre-determined theme.

Truth Be Told can be customized for your company or community. Nina will draw a personalized story theme from a slogan, a principle, or even an inside joke specific to your community.

Nina is a storytelling coach who can help you find your story, craft it, embody it, and tell it with confidence and glee.

Bring more to your story with Nina Rolle.

Links:

About Nina: https://www.ninarolle.com/meet-nina

About story slam:https://www.ninarolle.com/story-slam

About Truth Be Told: http://storyslamboulder.com

Bring more to your story with Nina Rolle.

BIO:

Nina Rolle (rhymes with trolley) is a North American voice-over actor, storyteller, singer, and avid thrower of holiday dinner parties. In addition to providing voice-overs for hundreds of clients internationally, including Absolut Vodka, Motorola, Subzero, Vail Ski Resorts, and Lexus, Nina is co-founder and host of the popular Truth Be Told story slam in Boulder, Colorado. She also performs regularly with the Brazilian samba group Chegando Lá, and is a masterful storytelling coach who can help you find your story, craft it, embody it, and tell it with confidence and glee.

Nina’s award-winning original show, Zen Cabaret: a Contemplative Burlesque has been performed everywhere from San Francisco nightclubs to a Hollywood rooftop, to the New York International Clown Festival;  as a music director and composer, Nina has performed her original scores in theatrical productions across the United States. Nina teaches meditation at Naropa University in Colorado and Dharma Art for Chapman University in California.

Nina’s newest enterprise, Boundless Playground, combines her thirty years’ experience as a meditator with her endlessly playful artistic practice in a series of retreats, concerts and workshops that explore the intersection of meditation and creativity.

#7 Intensive Performance Capture with Tom Keegan hosted by Dianne Weller

Tom Keegan is a renowned director of Video Games Performance Capture around the world. He came to work with 15 talented dancer, actors and Voice Over artists in Brussels to discover what is Performance Capture, how can we apply it to other performance mediums, how it can enhance your acting performance and be in the moment. And most importantly how to make the performance in this new medium of performance that is very ‘tech heavy’ be truthful, real and spot on. (https://pro.imdb.com/name/nm1146741/?ref_=instant_nm_1&q=tom%20keegan)

 

This workshop ran for 2 days on December 9th and 10th and hosted at the Need Company Studios in Brussels, Belgium.

#6 Workshop with the RITCS and Randall Ryan Voice Director talking about Voice Performance and Video Games

This workshop is a joint project between the Sproutland SoundLab and the RITCS that is happending at the RITCS Tuesday 18th June till 21st.

Randall is a renowned US Voice Director that careers spans over many years as musician and working in the field of Voice Casting and Direction. His video game credits include Lord of the Rings Online, World of Warcraft, Dungeons & Dragons Online, Transformers: Optimus Prime,, the Deer Hunter series, World Series of Poker, mobile gaming, children’s games, sports titles, and shooters.

Randall’s journey into voice casting and directing was an unusual one. He was a musician from 5yrs of age and touring songwriter for 15 years, He then co-found InternetSound in 1995.  Voice-over was an afterthought until the company started doing work for video games and changed the name to HamsterBall Studios.  Randall found he had a knack for directing talent, and soon voice-over became a bigger and bigger part of HamsterBall’s mix. Randall and HamsterBall also continue to do advertising and interactive projects, such as the national broadcast and social media campaigns for LendingTree and Patrón.

Randall is coming to meet the Voice Over talent in Belgium. The 2 day workshop is for only 12 lucky participants, half from the RITCS itself and other Voice Over Belgian based talent focusing on Commercials & Corporate reads day 1 & Video Games reads day 2.

Workshop attendees will learn and refine 7 musical techniques, such as rhythm, melody, keys/registers, to improve both vocal and acting ranges.  You will have coaching and time to work on text with Randall in the studio and the opportunity to receive your recorded material at the end of the workshop.

This Workshop is run Wednesday 20^th & Thursday 21^st June.

Randall will be holding a Talk about his work on Tuesday evening the 19^th June at the RITCS. For those following the course this is included in your ticket price.

SoundLab #5 Performing your Field Recordings Day 2

Lecture by Ruben Nachtergaele on his work practices followed by an introduction of 2 new participants on Day 2 and their work. A discussion and listening round occurred regarding their material and its possible avenues for performativity.

After lunch we broke into 3 groups of 5 or so. Group 1 developed the Electronic Field Recording that were made with the Magnetic Coil mics into into a performance. Group 2 used the Contact mics out in the Metro and combined recordings to make a short piece. Group 2 used Stethoscope mics to discover their environment with the rooms of Q02.

Short presentations of these performative materials were then presented in the Plenary group.

SoundLab #5 Performing your Field Recordings Day 1

Lecture by Peter Cusack on his work practices followed by a ‘tour de table’ of the participants. Works were shared amongst those present before the break. Some ideas were given on how to present those pieces in a performative way, collectively from the group.

After lunch we had a paired Field Recording exercise including either working with magnetic coiled mics in and around the QO2 house, or contact mics taking sounds of the Windmills on the Canal or the environment of the Metro station.

These recordings were listened to then in a joint plenary session. End Day 1.

Soundlab #5 Performing your Field Recordings

In this Soundlab we will investigate and fine tune how to take recordings to a live audience. What makes a recordist a good performer? Where do personal and artistic ambition play? How do you communicate with an audience?

As a point of departure, the participants will need to find out and define for themselves what value and meaning live performance with field recording might have. Next to the obvious motivation of sharing sonorous qualities with an audience, personality and skills make the difference. One can be more a storyteller, an other a biologist. Some will process fiercely while others swear by secure selection and simple playlisting. Others even go to the boundaries of the recognizable look and deform the material to make a new fiction.

This is hosted by Julia Eckhart’s team at Q-02 (www.q-02.be)

13 Feb : On the first day Peter Cusack will share his practices, knowledge and reflections, including his research during his residency, followed by hands-on exercises.

14 Feb : The second day will be guided by Ruben Nachtergaele, participants will be invited to present their own practice in regard to performing with field recording, and discuss each others work, and there will be time for practical exercises.

Inscription required to julia@q-o2.be – 15€ per day, 20€ both days.

SoundLab #4 Sonic Gardening

For information on this Lab go to the Curator’s page: Alessandra Coppola here on the site

SoundLab #3 Fantasy Workshop Results

Here are some of the information from Ant Hampton from the 3 day workshop he held during Lab#3 in Brussels in May 2012.

Here is a link to the google Map with all the locations of the individual Fantasy inventions:

https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=202471858050846646506.0004c0afcbfeb1264205b&msa=0&ll=50.85375,4.347067&spn=0.01482,0.034418
Here is a link to the audio files :

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1113809/Bxl%20Fantasy%20Interventions.zip

Here is a link to the materials from Ant’s ‘seminar’ on the first day which are on this website:
http://todoloquenopasatambieneslaciudad.posterous.com/a-collection-of-material-from-the-workshop-in

PASSWORD for this site is:  fantasy

SoundLab #3 Starts today..

What a great beginning of #3 with a Walk and discovery led by Roel Heremans and Talk by Julie Pfleiderer & Noid. Here is the list of the weeks activities below for your information of where to go and what to do when!!! The schedule is set between 3-6pm every day Mon – Fri it is just the venues that change. Please take care to read the information, you don’t want to miss it!

SOUNDLAB:AURATORY

Week 1 Schedule – 3pm – 6pm daily Mon-Fri

Contact: soundlabbrussels@gmail.com
Inscriptions: http://www.doodle.com/63g2zua3974e8v48

Monday 14th May

Where : MediaMarkt, 3 pm Rue Neuve 111, 1000 Brussels.

WALK: Roel Heremans

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic: Performing electromagnetic sounds with induction coil microphones.

TALK: 4:30pm noid & Julie Pfleiderer

Where: Talk at Constant Variable, Rue Gallaitstraat 80, 1030 Schaarbeek http://www.constantvzw.org/site/Soundlab-auratory.html

############################################################ It’s obvious, but let’s stress it again: There is no bird in a recording, there is only a some kind of information that can be used to reproduce a certain pattern of pressure waves in the air that a brain would accept as being the sound of this flying animals it learned to call birds.

As soon as the brain accepts the pressure-wave pattern as bird sound, it checks if the sound it perceived can be integrated into an environment.

situation #1:
I’m in a garden – there are birds – that’s normal – I’m reading a newspaper – no need to change or initiate activity – nothing happens – the I probably doesn’t even “hear” the bird.

situation #2:
I’m in a theater, there’s probably no birds – it’s part of the performance – I already know the scene plays in a garden – well…

let’s switch to the sound of a car:

situation #3:
I’m on a sound-walk – I hear the sound of a car – I’m on a street – is this car real or if only in the recording? anyway I’m on the sidewalk – what did the actor just say? where do I have to go next? … ############################################################ Sounddesigner Noid and director Julie Pfleiderer talk about their collaboration for the audiowalk and performance “Am Schönsten ist das was bereits verschwunden ist” at Festival Steirischer Herbst Graz Austria 2011.

Tuesday 15th May

Where: : meeting point 3pm at Nadine

Nadine, Herdersstraat 30 / rue du Berger Brussel 1050 Bruxelles

http://nadine.be/workshop/plateau/soundlab-3-auratory

WALK: Simon Loeffler

exploring the musicality of simple physical acts

TALK: 4:30pm Joanna Bailie

A sort of morphology of sound, giving non-musicians and non-sound experts a starting point for understanding the elements involved in sound (frequency, noise, harmonics) and how this applies to the sounds that they might be recording or using.

I’ll show a lot of examples using a sonogram programme which helps analyse and visualize sound material.
Maybe play a few excerpts of relevant works.
I might go on to look at elements of speech (what the sounds of speech are) in detail.

Wednesday 14th May

Where: Walk will take us from the Beurs/Bourse building (Boulevard d’Anspaachlaan 80, 1000 Brussels)
to Apass De Bottelarij Delaunoystraat 58, 1080 Brussel

WALK & TALK: Carlotta Scioldo

Do I know how a gaze will follow the next?
How a step follows the next?
We walk in the context of previous journeys as we talk in the context of previous discussions
we had
in other places
perhaps
“the walker knows as he goes”…
Shall we walk?
The walk is part of a research that explores different formats of guiding and wayfinding within the environment, playing with different components.
In this context, where do we locate sound and how do we move around it? Where do I allow myself to move under covered destinations?

Thursday 17th May: OPEN HOUSE FESTIVAL

Where: Meeting Point 3pm Pianofabriek,

rue du Fortstraat 35, 1060 St Gillis/Gilles http://pianofabriek.be/spip.php?page=rubrique&id_rubrique=331&moturl=1&la ng=nl – sound

WALK: Jason Sweeney and Caroline Daish

Interview with Jason Sweeney (participants need headphones and an Ipod or similar device to download mp3 from web; link given upon inscription).

TALK: 4:30pm Paul Craenen
Paul Craenen is a Belgian composer. He will be presenting a virtual guided tour through Klankenbos (a sound art collection in Neerpelt), and at the same time, he will reflect on sound art installations in public space.

Friday 18th May

Where: Meeting Point 3pm Pianofabriek,

rue du Fortstraat 35, 1060 St Gillis/Gilles http://pianofabriek.be/spip.php?page=rubrique&id_rubrique=331&moturl=1&la ng=nl – sound

TALK & WALK: David Helbich

Earpieces (Keine-Musik): talk performance, walk composition.
Together we perform individual scores for your ears, learn to manipulate our hearing and perform a silent walk composition in public space. Neighborhood, HEAR we come!

SoundLab #3 2012

SoundLab #3 – Seeing Sound – curated by Caroline Daish and Julie Pfleiderer, is 10 days investigating the border between Sound and Performance.

Where do they meet? Where do the two artistic communities meet? Who manages to cross or move within both areas and how? What type of work or encounter does this create? What is the body of knowledge around this?

We would like to approach this in the context of Soundwalks, inviting an expansive definition of the form Soundwalk.

First week: 14th – 18th May. 15 – 18h each day. Walking, listening, talking. Different locations moving through Brussels + Constant, nadine, Pianofabriek.

We have invited 10 artists to present a walk or talk about performance and sound, composing and using ‘found sounds’. Artists include Joanna Bailie, Paul Craenen, Caroline Daish, David Helbich, Roel Heremans, Simon Loeffler, Noid, Julie Pfleiderer, Carlotta Scioldo & Jason Sweeney.

The complete program for the first week with venues and content for each walk and talk is available next week. It is open for everyone interested and free of charge. Please subscribe for each day under: soundlabbrussels@gmail.com

Second week: 21st – 23rd May, 10-17h: Workshop with Ant Hampton. “Fantasy Interventions” is a workshop on imagination and writing for site-specific theatre and live urban interventions. For artists and practitioners from a wide variety of backgrounds – theatre-makers, sound artists, actors/directors, as well as choreographers, stage-designers, architects, poets and writers.

What can assist us in conceiving performance for locations outside theatre buildings? What sort of imagination is required for this kind of performance? What does it mean to balance fantasy with feasibility?

With a focus on observation imagination and writing and involving walks in the city, discussion, film and photography the workshop culminates with a series of presentations.

Practical Information: Please subscribe for Ant Hampton Workshop before 13th May 2012. Email address: soundlabbrussels@gmail.com
Venue:Beursschouwburg, Auguste Ortstsstraat 20-28, 1000 Brussel, Cost: 50€

We are also part of the OPEN HOUSE FESTIVAL on the 17 and 18 May in de PianoFabriek!
see under:
http://www.openhousebrussels.be/?page=about