"HOW TO PERFORM A BURDEN?: CARQUEJEIRAS OF PORTO", Voice and performance workshop by Nadja Kracunovic

SATURDAY, 8TH OF JUNE

WORKSHOP PART 1: VOICE AND MINI MONUMENTS
11:00-12:30
SALA BRANCA, CRL

WORKSHOP PAR 2: PERFORMANCE
14:00-15:00
DOURO COAST, THE BEGINNING OF THE CALÇADA DAS CARQUEJEIRAS

CALL FOR PARTICIPATION
All females and those who identify as female, regardless of age, profession, ethnicity, or background, are welcome to join. To participate, please email nadja.kracunovic@yahoo.com

Gratuito

ABOUT
This workshop is a radical exploration of using the voice as a discipline to express the unspoken, inspired by the Carquejeiras of Porto, the heroines of a silenced drama. Female participants will engage in several activities to unburden themselves using courage, imagination, and memory. The final performance will be a walking and voicing performance – climbing the steep sidewalk from the coast of Douro, up to the monument of Carquejeiras.
The workshop aims to celebrate female agency and depict personal burdens through various expressive methods. Through a combination of voice exercises, mini monuments clay-making, Carqueja tea sessions, and performance exercises we will cherish the sweetness of sustained female solidarity.

WORKSHOP STRUCTURE

Day 1: Introduction and Crafting

1. Introduction:
- Introduction round
- Relationship with the Voice, Voice as a Method/Medium

2. Voice Warm-Up:
- Basic voice exercises (A, E, I, O, U) – different paces and loudness
- Activities to explore the relationship between voice and physical space, such as calling out names while moving around the room.

3. Tea Making and Story Sharing:
- Learn about the Carquejeiras through storytelling while making tea, a symbol of intimacy and femalehood.

4. Crafting the Burden:
- Participants will draw or create a clay representation of their personal burdens out of self-drying clay (miniatures)
- Tea drinking and group discussion about the crafted burdens.

5. The Burden Voicing:
- Write a brief description of the burden in up to five sentences.

* Experiment with voicing the burden through three different methods:
1. Syllables Selection
2. A sound, noise, or more of them, repetition of the same sound
3. A song, melody (lullaby, folk song, pop song, favorite song, childhood song, etc.)

- Reflection round

Select a method or song for the performance on Day 2.

Day 2: Walking a Scream – Performance

1. Starting Point:
- Gather at the coast of Douro. (or in front of the CRL and walk there)
- Begin the climb to the Carquejeiras monument collectively, each participant carrying their clay-made burden.

2. Climbing the Cobblestoned Path:
- Reflect on the weight, heaviness, and significance of the burdens being carried.
- Contemplate the moment the burden appeared in their lives and the time spent with it.

3. Voicing the Burden:
- Participants will vocalize their burdens using one of the methods practiced on Day 1, or create a new expression.
- Possible vocalizations include singing a song, repeating a word, making noises, screaming, or producing silence.
- The performance of the sounds will be continuously happening all the way up.

4. Experimental Choir:
- The group will ascend together, experimenting with sounds, noises, and songs.
- This can result in a cacophony or a synchronized experience, depending on the group's dynamic.

5. Reflection at the Monument:
- Upon reaching the Carquejeiras monument, the group will rest and have water.
- Engage in a calm reflection on the climbing choir experience.


NADJA KRACUNOVIC
Nadja Kracunovic (b.1996) is a Serbian-born, multimedia artist.
In her interdisciplinary art practice, she focuses on the experience of the private,
female, bureaucratic, artistic, and disciplined bodies. Revivifying stages in public
spaces, she brings female characters to life through cabarets and monodramas in
performative investigations, drawing materials from her diaries, folk tales, family
history, and intimate encounters. Dealing with societal stigmas, she breeds feminine narratives using body materials such as hair and saliva, humor, and poetry. Nadja is the initiator of the never-ending experimental radio station
https://www.futurenostalgia.digital/ dealing with the constant uncertainty of our times, and co-founder of the Crying Classroom, a collaborative, civil, and artistic project that researches crying through the self-governing community.