Close your eyes, listen and express…

It all took place in a farm surrounded by picturesque green hills, oaks and sheep with tinkling bells, where we spent seven invaluable days.

These seven days, we had a unique experience in a circle of unknown people, to whom we first briefly tried to introduce ourselves, but in the end, were able to share our deepest fears.

Speaking of fears – as people generally are used too much to rely on sight, we tried to perceive sound with closed eyes, so that we could experience it in its purity. Therefore, many activities were made without looking, like the one, when we went for a walk, while our buddy kept eye on us. Or the one, when we danced to different kinds of music, were oriented in the space just by touch and then showed an emotion, which the playing music has awaken in us.

Or the path of sound. Do you say you´ve never heard of it? Let me describe. The path was made of a simple string hold by all the participants scattered in specified stations with a simple musical instrument. One person was moving along the string, blindfolded and in total silence to listen carefully. While walking, this person was always stopped by somebody holding an instrument, who tried to create a mini-concert dedicated just to this person. All of the participants went through the path of sound, while people in the stations were changing. Everybody had thus a different experience, which was created by all of us together.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYVpDz4alu0

Making music was a common thing we did in this project and often, this was done quite spontaneously. For example, one night, we gathered around a bonfire and experimented with musical instruments and our voices, which resulted in a rhythmic, almost shamanic sound. Or my favourite one – when we grab all the unbreakable dishes we could find in the kitchen and created really cool and noisy music.

Naturally, we didn´t make music only in a sudden rush of inspiration. Several times, we composed our own songs (you can download them on iTunes) and added some choreography. To make the music even more authentic, we created our own musical instruments from paper, wood, aluminium foil, twigs and many other materials.  Finally, we recorded our masterpieces to keep a memory of the evening when we felt just a little bit like artists.

Our artistic expression during the whole week was intended to be above all authentic. So if you are used to having a poker face, keeping feelings to yourself and having great self-control all the time, then there you would have to get a bit painfully out of your comfort zone – but boy, it was worth it! It was so worth to connect to our deepest core and get in touch with our true self we fear so much to show others. We revealed this true self probably the most during the theatre night when everybody prepared a small performance for others to see us in a new and often unexpected light.

All this work with our senses and feelings must have influenced us in some way and in order for it to leave a mark in our life, we had to apply this change in an area of our life. Therefore, we learned some management techniques to plan and implement new resolutions.

In the end, we had to leave this big international family, so we celebrated with thanks and lighting candles and said goodbye to each other by either touch, looking into the eyes or word. We will surely remember the great food, enthusiastic atmosphere and all the people from Italy, Greece, Spain, Hungary and the Czech Republic.

Hana Kaňková, Ludmila Koukalová, Zuzana Holá