“A WebPage in Three Acts” is an assemblage of live coded visual experiments performed in the web browser. The screen becomes an open stage for the hybrid code which links choreography and web programming; body and language.
The computer screen is divided in two stages: the ‘frontstage’, the interface a user normally accesses and the ‘backstage’ or the web console in which programming languages can be run. In the web console Joana Chicau calls, juxtaposes and manipulates different web programming actions which are named after choreographic concepts. The page originally filled with information, will be deconstructed, with elements being set in motion, displaying a varied composition of graphic elements in the screen. The performance structure is divided in three acts, and comprehends physical movement.
Joana Chicau [PT/NL] is a graphic designer, coder, researcher — with a background in dance. Her trans-disciplinary project interweaves web programming languages and environments with choreographic practices. In her practice she researches the intersection of the body with the constructed, designed, programmed environment, aiming at in widening the ways in which digital sciences is presented and made accessible to the public. She has been actively participating and organizing events with performances involving multi-location collaborative coding, algorithmic improvisation, open discussions on gender equality and activism. Recent work, news and updates: www.joanachicau.com
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Jasper Stadhouders (Tilburg, NL, 1989) is a guitarist, bassist, improviser, composer, bandleader and concert organizer. He is an active member of the international improvised music circuit. He is a member of Amsterdam-based musician’s collective DOEK. They organize the annual DOEK Festival in Amsterdam. Jasper leads the PolyBand which he founded in 2015. The PolyBand consists of an ever-expanding pool of musicians and performers in varying line-ups and sizes which focuses on polyrhythmic cycles, polytonality and trance-like long forms. In 2019, Jasper received a commission from the prestigious festival Gaudeamus Muziekweek (Utrecht, NL) to compose an entirely new work for a 16-piece version of the PolyBand which will premier in September 2019. At the 2015 Incubate Festival (Tilburg, NL), during a 6-day residency he led the Jasper Stadhouders’ International Improv Ensemble.
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Björk Níelsdóttir and Fie Schouten perform pieces by Georges Aperghis and Ig Henneman.
Soprano and multi-instrumentalist Björk Níelsdóttir (Iceland, 1986) began her musical life at an early age studying trumpet. After joining Björk Guðmundsdóttir on the Volta World Tour (2007 – 2008), she pursued her career as a singer, earning in 2015 a Master degree from the Conservatory of Amsterdam with Excellence and Distinction for artistry. Among her activities: she gave solo recitals performing Sequenza by Luciano Berio and Les Récitations by Georges Aperghis. She is co-founder of Stirni Ensemble, Iceland based chamber ensemble for which she arranged Astor Piazzola in 2018, and of DUPLUM, with violist Thora Margrét Sveinsdóttir, blending colors from folk culture and minimalism with their expertise of classical and contemporary music.
The Dutch clarinetist Fie Schouten is an Amsterdam based specialist in the performance of new music with a preference for playing on the low clarinets. Schouten can be heard extensively as a soloist and with her own ensembles. She has had around 100 pieces written for her, which she has premiered in various formations. Fie Schouten is Artistic Director of a bass clarinet festival titled ‘Basklarinet Festijn’ with a fourth edition coming up in 2020. In 2015, Dutch Donemus Publishing published her album of bass clarinet miniatures. Schouten is Professor of Bass Clarinet/contemporary music at the Prince Claus Conservatoire Groningen. Since 2008 she has been one of the Stockhausen-soloists performing many works by Karlheinz Stockhausen with renowned ensembles. She studied clarinet and bass clarinet at the Amsterdam Conservatoire and cites Harry Sparnaay as her most important teacher. www.fieschouten.nl