Dancing the Voice & Singing the Soul
Come together for a Workshop
with
Ruth Wieder Magan
28th and 29th August 2010
West Cork, Ireland.
We invite you to come and participate in a two day workshop with Ruth.
This will encourage you to explore your Voices and experience their vibration through space and time, allowing a connection with the echoes of an inner memory from a distant past.
Ruth Wieder Magan has developed , through study of the Talmud and Kabbalah –ancient Jewish Oral and Mystical Traditions, an understanding of how the voice moves in a similar way to the soul enlivening the body. She encourages the transcendental aspects of voice to manifest revealing their power and subtlety. Through voice, the relationship between essential self, other, and group becomes apparent, and naturally brings about a growth in personal and collective awareness.
The voice has magical powers: it can link body and soul; it is a secret of self expression; an aspect of the dance of the soul; a way to contact the primal foundations of communication and experience the resonance of the personal and the cosmic; to be truly human.
It is said that deep in the forgotten recesses of the hearts of all humans there lives the ancient memory of how to be a real human being. Rebbe Nachman , a Great Rabbi and Crazy Mystic of the 18th Century taught that there is spark of goodness in all things and that this can be recovered to heal our selves and perfect the world. He says that the craft of gathering in sparks is called song or prayer.
May our songs sing the world a little bit back from the brink of self destruction, encouraging it, and ourselves, to move from being scared to being sacred so we may jump up and live again.
In short please come and sing with us.
Ruth has chosen to work with a small group so places are strictly limited.
This is a rare opportunity to experience your voice in a different way.
Please write, phone or email to ask for more information.
Workshop cost €150 and bring food to share.
To book your place please send €50.00 deposit
Mike Tanner, Donemark, Bantry, Ireland or email: sacredsound@eircom.net ph.02751567
http://www.myspace.com/ruthwiedermagan
The Sound of Spirit
a Concert
with Ruth and Noirin Ni Rian
St Brendan's Bantry
27th August at 7.30pm
Ruth Wieder-Magan Biography
Ruth is best known for her pioneering work integrating sacred Hebrew texts into contemporary music and theatre. Her unique approach to the transcendental aspects of voice, text and spatial perception is deeply rooted in Jewish oral tradition: Talmud, Kabbalah, and, in particular, the esoteric and influential 9th century text -"Book of Creation.” Her innovative work has enriched voice study, introducing it as evolving vibrational sculptures, or a kind of scanner of dimensions. Another important aspect of Ruth's vocal performances, or Theatre of Voices, is the recreation of the female voice in Jewish text and song. In a Tradition where the male voice is omnipotent, Ruth is making audible and available to women the already deeply internalized female processes recorded by men.
Ruth's collaborative research of sacred Hebrew texts has served as a foundation for over ten original contemporary works of music and theatre produced with Theatre Company Jerusalem, of which she is a founding member and co-director. The original works of Theatre Company Jerusalem include "Ma’aseh Bruria," "Elef Ester Vehester," "Even The Birds," "Echoes of Prayer," "Sara, Take One" and "Songs Inner and Revealed". For these performances, Theatre Company Jerusalem has received national and international prizes.
Ruth began her studies of voice and speech as a young child with the renowned Australian teacher, Marie Boyers. She graduated from the Trinity College of Music in Sydney at the age of 18. A few months thereafter she emigrated to Israel and entered into rigorous studies of ancient Jewish texts, including Jewish mysticism and Hassidism. Amongst her teachers during this period were-the poet and inspired gypsy singer Allen Afterman whose songs always trod the fine line between flight and the terrible abyss, - and the enigmatic and saintly leader of Braslev Hasidism, Rav Gedalia Koenig. Through Rav Koenig and others she gained extensive exposure to the ritual singing of closed Hassidic sects and these opened up for her the area of mystical communion through song.
Ruth continued in experimental voice training with the Roy Hart Theatre in France, and in particular with Barry Coghlan. There she was introduced to the extended range of the voice and was able to further explore the connections between voice and psyche. In 1989, she began in-depth studies of cantorial singing with the noted teachers Dov Kaplan and Chaim Feifel. As important as all these teachers have been to Ruth's vocal genius, a motivating sources for her art has been her parents, both of whom were Holocaust survivors. Through them, she first heard melodies, intonations and spiritual inklings rooted in a lost world.