Three and a half days of intense explorations of voice and movement for body-mind balance and creative, vibrant well-being.
Scroll down for the Mandarin version
中文見下方
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Voice Yoga Winter Solstice Retreat 2022. Photo: Jackal Mei
WHAT IS THIS VOICE YOGA?
WHAT IS THIS RETREAT ABOUT?
In Voice Yoga’s dynamic group process, you go beyond your habits and expectations. Something larger than yourself emerges: a flow of hidden creative potential.
Grounded in physical exercise such as yoga or contact improvisation, we work with all kinds of sounds without meaning and without emphasizing a beautiful singing voice. Pure, direct expressions and sensations of physical resonance and vibration through mouth, limbs, hips, feet, skin and inner organs.
We go beyond common subject-object and mind-body dualities, and bring our unconscious selves and sometimes irrational emotions to the surface. The group process becomes a mirror for the self and allows us to ‘see’ ourselves more clearly, to hear what’s living deep inside. The result is often of a surprising clarity and immediacy.
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PROGRAM OUTLINE
We start Thursday Dec 21st at 9 AM and suggest you arrive the evening before.
We finish after lunch on Sunday 24th, around 1:30 PM.
Day 1
9:00-12:30 introduction to the program. Light exercising, breathing exercises, start moving, toning, improvising. Deep sleep session is usually included!
12:30-14:30 lunch & siësta
14:30-16:30 Guided movement and sound practices, walking meditations, improvisations
16:30-17:00 Tea time
17:00-18:00 Guided movement and sound practices, walking meditations, improvisations
Day 2, 3, 4 (half day)
9:00-12:00 Slow meditative warm up, mild to vigorous exercising, toning, noise making. Once again: restorative (half-)sleep/dream.
12:30-14:30 lunch & siësta
14:30-16:30 Guided movement and sound practices, walking meditations, improvisations
16:30-17:00 Tea time
17:00-18:00 Guided movement and sound practices, walking meditations, improvisations
18:00-19:00 dinner
On Day 3, our last evening, after the Solstice and before Christmas Eve, we will jointly celebrate the change from darkness to light. Participants can contribute a memory or reflection, a song, a dance, individually, en groupe, as a duo, whatever comes up. Consider to bring an instrument you play, candles to lighten up the atmosphere, a special garment or hat to wear.
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PLACE
We hold our sessions in Shufang’s Energy Healing, a gorgeous yoga studio with a big garden in Dulan, Taidong. The studio has all utilities we need and is fully air-conditioned of course. We can use the big lawn outside for musical workouts in fresh air, giant rocks to repose, and shady places to rest.
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FOR WHOM?
The workshop attracts young, curious artists; established musicians and performers facing creative obstacles or blockades; yoga and other body-mind workers not very familiar with sound; people familiar with sound but needing a fuller understanding and experience of it; people youna and old looking for physical and spiritual development; practitioners of Buddhism and other contemplative traditions needing deeper breathing and chanting practice; busy people needing a break from work in a relaxed atmosphere. Despite the name, Voice Yoga is not a harsh or demanding yoga camp, quite the contrary: it lets you grow at your own peace and rest and sleep or observe when you want to.
There are no specific requirements to join. Ages frange from early 20s to around 75. Yoga, music or other skills are not required. We strive for a group between 8 and 12 people.
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HOW TO PREPARE?
Bring a yoga mat to exercise and lie down. There are sitting cushions and also chairs if you cannot sit on the floor for long. Bring something to cover yourself when we repose or meditate. Bringing an instrument is a good idea (no need to play it well; a percussive instrument is always good).
Voice Yoga Winter Solstice Retreat 2022. Photo: Jackal Mei
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LANGUAGES
English + Chinese
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YOUR TEACHER
Mark van Tongeren is a Dutch sound explorer with a deep interest in the synergy of arts, sciences and contemplative traditions. Mark has 30 years of experience in theatre, music and dance productions and holds a PhD from Leiden University’s Academy of Creative of Performing Arts. He practices yoga for some twenty-five years and all kinds of voice/music/performance practices for 35 years. His enterprise Fusica was established in 1998 to explore intersections of sound and the arts (music) on the one hand, and science and academica (fusikè, physics) on the other, with .
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MEET THE TEAM & CONTACT
This workshop is brought to you by organiser Jackal Mei, translator Sunny Chen and hosted by Shufang Wang.
Administrative assistance by Hsi-Yin Chang.
Jackal, Sunny, Mark
For any questions about the contents in English, ask Mark.
mark@fusica.nl
FB: https://www.facebook.com/Paraphony
Phone 0910382749
For any questions about the contents in Mandarin, and for lodging, travel and food details, ask Jackal.
– online application form: https://forms.gle/WoCuHwKaMbzp7LZm6
– After transferring, please SMS, Line, or email to inform Hsi-Yin with your name, and the last 5 numbers of your bank account
– After receiving your fee, we will send a confirmation email in 5 days, and invite you joining our line group for more event detail.
PAYMENT
Bank code: 822.
Name of bank: China Trust
Beneficiary: Mark Christiaan van Tongeren
Account number: 163540306745
Make sure to send an email to Hsi-Yin after your payment. We will confirm reception as soon as possible.
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DISCLAIMER
We try to keep prices reasonable. If you cannot make it for some reason, we will return 80% of deposit fees up to 2 weeks before the event, 50% in the second week before starting date, and no refund in the last week leading to the event. In case of proven COVID-19-related problems we can give a refund (minus admin charge) or save the registration and fees for a next workshop.
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DISCLAIMER
By signing up you automatically acknowledge your understanding that this retreat sometimes involves strenuous physical exercise, potentially disrupting body-work and emotionally charged sessions with a deep impact on your well-being. It is understood that you yourself best know of any risks (physical, emotional, psychological) and that there is no pressure or obligation to do each and every exercise. By joining this retreat you accept the consequences and state your intention to complete it till the end. You waive all rights to seek or receive compensation in case of injury, loss or damage.
We reserve the right to cancel the retreat in the case we do not reach the minimum number of participants, between 4 and 2 weeks before starting date; in this case all paid workshop fees will be promptly returned. We are not responsible for expenses for the BnB or transport.
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KNOW MORE?
Mark’s Voice Yoga runs for over 10 years and brings together decades of creative, vocal expression, yogic discipline and contemplative traditions.
Voice Yoga is neither yoga as you see all around you, or music as you hear it every day. It is a personal, artistic synthesis of a wide range of musical, resonant, theatrical, contemplative and physical arts. What binds them together is Mark’s unique synthesis and his vision to create a strong sense of flow, no matter what the activity is. Serious workouts smoothly blend with unforgettable (and unrepeatable!) musical creations, deep breath work morphs into contact improv and vocal exercises into absurdistic theatre.
This retreat will give you a big boost, whether you are a musician, dancer, yoga teacher, actor, or just interested in working on your personal growth through the connections between sound, body and mind. No problem if you’ve never done yoga before!
“I felt many sounds inside me first time and I felt there is an inner space inside my body. That was an very powerful experience for me. The body wasn’t what I knew before. I felt peace when you sang… I do have a lot of fun when you want us imitate your voice… Every time when we make sounds together I feel I am decomposing and putting every part of me in one again. “
– Judith
” Your class shows me the magic of breath and voice. This makes my inner child very happy. “
– Nancy
” I enjoyed the class very much today. You had everyone engaged and creatively expressed as well as discharging and recharging well. “
– Tina
” More than ever, it brings back my childhood so I can play again. “
– Kovida
” Your class shows me the magic of breath and voice. This makes my inner child very happy. “
– Nancy
” Voice Yoga helps me feel lighter. “
– Jennifer
” I enjoy a lot and feel relaxed, this is a special course for me. “
A few days ago, Overtone Singing – Hidden Dimensions of the Human Voice has arrived at its distribution centers in the US (NY), Europe (Haarlem) and Taiwan (Longtan). Publisher David Rothenberg produced a beautiful midway solution between paperback and hardcover book, called ‘flexibound.’
That was the signal to also let the Anthology of Overtone Singing go public. First of all on Bandcamp, where the audio is now available for streaming or purchasing. I also submitted all tracks to Apple Music, Spotify etc. etc. 25 Artists that are not featured on Apple Music and Spotify yet now will be represented there. It took me about a year of preparations and it meant not a small thing to press that ‘SUBMIT’ button to me.
So book and music are available now from Terra Nova Press, from me and next week also from a European address. We are still working out the best solution to offer the music and the book in one go. For the moment, the book is available through Terra Nova Press and by writing to me directly, while the Anthology is available in Bandcamp. Possibly we offer both in one package very soon.
There is a limited number of books available with a CD that is nearly identical with the streaming version from Bandcamp: just two tracks have been shortened a bit to fit onto the CD format. Details will soon be published on Bandcamp; you can also write to me if that is what you need.
The major platforms will start selling and shipping the book in December or January.
After three years of editing (text), drawing, scanning (illustrations), mastering (audio) and revising under the guidance of very capable editors, Overtone Singing – Hidden Dimensions of the Human Voice is now getting ready for printing and distributing. It was nearly 20 years ago when I first met the new publisher, David Rothenberg, in his upstate New York village, after attending the Small Publisher’s Fair in New York City. We became friends, met here and there every once in a while and kept up a correspondence about many issues, such as the music of birds and other creatures, which is his special theme. Some years ago he launched his own press and so we came to talk about my book Overtone Singing, which needed a thorough update and revision.
Pre-order Overtone Singing on Book Depository – free world-wide delivery
Many things have been changed compared to the original book, so much so that I think this is the definitive version. Why? Because the contents became more and more integrated, my views more balanced, I dared to speak out criticisms more clearly, I updated myself about aspects that I thought were poorly represented (such as the healing and therapeutic aspects of overtones). Not to mention the development of the field itself in these 20 years: female overtone singers are once again well-established instead of marginal, the khöömei ‘traditions’ have developed in many directions and become modern in many ways, and they have popped up in new places where we did not really expect them (such as China, to mention one controversial case I discuss).
I also had the great fortune to do research about the ‘multi-part’ (that is, choral) traditions of overtone singing (Tibet, South Africa, Sardinia) and to make recordings there. I am quite proud about the accompanying audio guide, which is now called The Anthology of Overtone Singing and will be available in many places soon. I have been to nearly every place with an overtone singing tradition and keep on investigating these fascinating traditions in person, wherever I can. I think my new Physics chapter sets a good standard for what is possible technically, with updated drawings by own hand. The lessons learnt from several projects for which I have created new works for overtone singers have been really important for that: the Paraphony Laboratory and the Parafonia group, the Superstringtrio, and now IUooUI in Taiwan. In another way this book finally got the form I had always wanted it to be. Despite the help of several capable readers and editors in previous versions, there were still quite some mistakes in terms of English usage. Thanks to a thorough review process, there is no more engrish now!
What we are hoping for now, is to get enough backers for the crowdfunding campaign. OK, let me explain, for those who get confused. Crowdfunding is when you buy and pay for something that does not yet exist, but which you hope and wish will go into production: a book or music project, or a new model electric toothbrush – it can be anything, really. A backer is internet lingo for a supporter, which is simply a client who buys something, or someone who pays more to support a project and receives something extra on top. So without further ado, please check out the campaign for the Overtone Singing book on indiegogo.com, and order a book by clicking on the link below.
You will be among the first to receive the book and I will be eternally grateful to you! If you have any questions or problems with Indiegogo, you can always write to me directly.
You will find all the details about the book on this page.
Pictured from top to bottom: Sainkho Namtchylak with guitarist Kazuhisa Uchihashi; singers from Castelsardo, Sardinia; Musicians from Nqoko, South Africa; Khöömei Day in Tuva, 2018;Andreï Öpei and Valeriy Mongush from Tuva; the author with Trân Quang Hai, renowned overtone singing researcher, onstage in Kyzyl, Tuva, 1995.
Due to all the uncertainties in Hong Kong, the Soundtherapy Hong Kong team decided it is not a good time to run my regular Hong Kong workshop Outer Voice – Inner Voice. So we cancel the workshop. Here is the original post with announcement and some photos from the workshops 2014-2018.
If you want to learn overtone singing with me but do not need a Chinese translation, then the workshops in Hong Kong may be something for you. Most workshops in Taiwan are with translation, which means we lose some time for interpretation. This November workshop in Hong Kong is the next opportunity to do an English-only workshop, other opportunities in Winter and Spring 2020 will be announced here soon.
I have had such fantastic experiences during the Hong Kong workshops over the past six years and would like to look back through some photos. The first workshop I did was during the Umbrella Revolution in 2014 – though the umbrellas you see in the first photo were not related to the protest. The previous visit (late 2018) was just days after a violent typhoon struck Hong Kong, locking people in their homes with the wind bashing on their windows and rains creeping in through the windowposts. On the beach (last photo) we found the remains of shops that were completely destroyed. In between you will find mostly happier moments shared with students and Jennifer and Jasmine. And at the bottom my ‘Courage!’ statement for the many friends in Hong Kong.
With Jasmine Hui of Soundtherapy Hong Kong at the workshop location, a comix and animation center.
The fantastic Soundtherapy Hong Kong team and me have revamped the annual Outer Voice ~ Inner Voice workshop to make it a bit more accessible and diverse. At the same time old students will find some new themes to progress further in their exploration of overtone singing and the endless possibilities of the colours of the human voice.
The general idea is for starters to come to Part One ~ Outer Voice (day one) and from there to continue with Part Two ~ Inner Voice (day two and three). Old students can directly come to Part Two ~ Inner Voice, if they wish. Within these two blocks there are still six themes to chose from – or you can do them all.
PART I ~ OUTER VOICE
THE RESONATING BODY
DAY 1. SOUND IS MOVEMENT
Session 1. Breath, Prana & Movement
Breath is one process in the totality of prana / life force, and the one that drives our vocal sound too. We slowly build up our vocal practise from the breath and from movements. From relaxation we start a journey to learn new ways of sounding and moving. Familiar, everyday patterns become tools for transformation. Plenty of group chanting and toning, too.
Session 2. Sounds and music to lose and find yourself
We continue our exploration by shaking up things a bit more. Going wild and extreme one moment, contemplating sound and self another. Focus and un-focus. By doing less than we normally do, we notice more. We return to a primary knowledge that sits at the centre of the body-mind-division: sonic phenomenology. Musical games/meditations/dances. Serious fun. Anything is possible, and nothing too!
Projecting vowels into the body
PART II. INNER VOICE
INTO THE HEART OF SOUND
DAY 2. THE HARMONIC UNIVERSE
Session 3. Cosmic Listening
After some energising Voice Yoga we dive into the subtler realms of vowels, resonance and overtones. You take your first steps in The Art of Listening 2.0. Break through your habitual patterns of sounding and hearing. Expand your awareness of voice physiology. Cosmic listening to overtone singing with the sruti box and hear your own harmonics. Getting back to the more vigorous shake-ups of the day before whenever needed.
Session 4. Your Voice, Your Resonance, Your life
Overtone singing is not easy and pursuing mere technique in itself can be a burden. Armed with new understandings and experiences of the hidden dimensions of the human voice, we ask ourselves where we want to go with it. How do you resonate? What makes your voice unique? Love it or hate it? Every voice and every path is different. Pushing our vocal limits, we collectively embrace failure. And return to soothing vibrant sonic meditations.
Holland Street
DAY 3. CREATIVE IMAGINATION as a SOURCE OF LIFE
Session 5. Mantras, Chants and Sound poems
In an age of media technologies we have silenced ourselves and forgotten our ancestors’ songs. Mantras are among the most ancient sound tools around and we can still learn from them. The repetitive vibrations of chants also awake slumbering resonances in our body-mind. Add to that 21st century Sound Poems flavored with overtones and we have a complete palette of tools to revive the lost sonic core of our selves.
Session 6. Paraphony
Paraphony means: there is no such thing as objective sounds. Sound is shaped by your ears, your awareness, your mood … always in flux. In our last session, we throw ourselves into the creative process of making music by and for ourselves and each other. The more we live by our creative impulses—be they noisy and chaotic or contemplative and balanced—the deeper we get to know ourselves and the world around is. Resonating together, we attune ourselves to ever subtler sounds of tones, overtones and elusive acoustic realms. Grasping these phenomena, we manifest our own voice, bring it out in its own unique glory.
PART II ~ Session 3 /4 and 5/6: 23-24 Nov 2019 (Sat – Sun), Time: 10am – 5:30pm
To register Session 3-6 (Part II), you’re required to register for either Session 1 or 2 first. Past students can directly register for Part II without taking Session 1 or 2.
Venue (All Sessions): Sound Therapy Hong Kong
For registration go to the Soundtherapy Hong Kong website here and on Facebook.
Awaken your potential:
– > to listen better
– > to hear and sing the natural overtones in your voice
– > to understand your inner drives better
– > to diversify your voice
After this 3 days workshop, you will go home with a renewed sense of self through a fresh look and ‘a fresh ear’ at your voice. You will have a fuller understanding of its complex vibratory mechanisms, and get many new ideas how these operate at the point where body and mind are merged in a greater whole. You learn techniques to better hear the world around you and inside you. These tools help you to gradually increase your musical/sound awareness, to know what needs to be healed and how to do that.
For whom?
No previous musical or vocal experience is required. Just bring a healthy dosage of curiosity and willingness to explore. The starting point is your own path as a speaker, as a communicator, as a person who enjoys music. Or simply as a human being. This workshop is beneficial for musicians and artists, for healers and therapists, and for anyone looking for more direction, meaning and depth in their lives.
Improvising theatre director Ho Ying Fung and Wu Wentsui brought me to this fantastic streetperformance in January 2018
Courage, Hong Kong!
It is my sincere wish that Hong Kong remains as much as possible as it isnow:
a relatively free space within the larger Chinese boundaries
a place where Cantonese people with a democratic inclination determine the political, economic, cultural course of their unique region
a peaceful and culturally diverse hotspot where people from around the world live and work together without an over-active state apparatus encroaching upon their lives
My prayers go out to my Hong Kong friends and everyone else suffering from the human violence and psychological pressure. I pray too for the perpretators because it is, in my point of view, them who need to find peace of mind more than anyone else.
Explore the hidden dimensions of the human voice. Make music with overtones and new timbres. Listen to the world and to yourself with new ears. Learn how to use your voice as a powerful tool for transformation and better communication.
By taking time to breathe and to listen to all the ways in which the body and the world resonates, we open up an amazing path of discovery and creative, therapeutic learning. – Mark van Tongeren
What impressed us is the way of your teaching … subtle, perceptual, respective, creative, fun and updated. Thank you sincerely. – Una Kao
YOU, YOUR VOICE, AND YOUR BEING
How to find your own voice? How to be who you are? How not to be who you are, but to become someone else? Someone you wish to be?
How to feel your whole being resonating, alive, complete …. to feel at ease with yourself, and to be completely YOU while in the presence of others? To meet others around you who can also be themselves, without acting nicely, or keeping up appearances?
In Mark van Tongeren’s R E S O N A N C E course, music, and most of all, the human voice, is the foremost instrument to achieve precisely that goal. To reach into the greatest depths of your soul, to stir your mind and your thinking, even to change your physical body. To bring all these disparate ‘parts’ of ‘a single self’ together in a fully resonating whole, a symphony of vibrations, pulses, frequencies.
The backbone of this training program is the overtone singing technique. Overtones are like a world of their own residing within the timbres of your voice. You will deeply immerse yourself in the fundamental harmonic laws of musical sound We will come back again and again to change the way we listen and vocalise, opening up to the hidden dimension of overtones, the harmonics that our voices and ears know well but our minds know not. In an experiential and personalised way you will learn to express yourself better, using a fuller range and spectrum of your voice.
FOR WHOM?
We have welcomed all kinds of people in the R e s o n a n c e course, from white-collar workers and school teachers to art students and creative professionals, from computer experts to yoga teachers and people with voice problems, from male afficionadoes of Mongolian and Tuvan khöömei to classically trained soprano’s.
This course is aimed at anyone with an interest in or sensitivity for sound as a creative principle. and those seeking more balance in their live.
No previous musical experience is required. For students who have already done one or more workshops of overtone singing there will still be plenty to learn. If you are in doubt, contact us with your questions.
LANGUAGE
The course will be mostly conducted in English. Your interpreter Sunny Chen will summarise or translate entire parts of the course into Mandarin, depending on the needs.
PRICES, DISCOUNTS and BENEFITS
The price per participant is 17.500 NT$ for ten classes. The following discounts apply (only one per person):
* Students and seniors with valid identity cards for the duration of the course: 25 %.
* Early birds: 15 % if you register before October 20. Extended to November 5!
* Payment in smaller increments is possible.
TESTIMONIALS So much happiness and joy of being with you. And it’s where I find ME. I should sing it. Sing it for you. To let you know how much you give me.
Sky from Hsinchu
I really enjoy sound flowing out freely and impulsively. Although I am the singer, I am also the listener, I hear sound coming out of my mouth, naturally flowing. I feel sound is the language of the soul, something language cannot express. I really wish to learn overtone singing. I feel overtone singing opens up some unknown and unfathomable territories.
Amano from Hsinchu
YOUR GUIDE
Mark van Tongeren is a vocal performer working at the intersection of art and science. He has 25 years of experience in music and intermedial performance and holds a PhD in artistic research. He has traveled to the Altai, Mediterranean isles and Tibetan monasteries to learn from established masters. He is an international authority on the technique of overtone singing, both as a performer and author. He has taught at TNUA’s Music and Theatre Departments (2003-2004), National Chengchi University’s X-Lab (2012 – now) and at Canjune. He frequently collaborates with composers, improvisers, musicians and dancers in and outside Taiwan. He teaches and co-leads tours for Canjune and will lead the second musical tour to Tuva (Siberia) in Summer 2018.
10 days from December 24, 2017 to April 2018
10 AM – 17:30 PM.
Place: CanJune Training Centre, Daan Area.
4F, #3 , Lane 151, Fuxing S Rd. Sec. 2.
Registrations for the course or requests for the digital brochure:
In Chinese: ly.sunny.chen@gmail.com/ 0912-024-285 CHEN Sunny
In English: info@fusica.nl / 0910 382 749 Mark van Tongeren
Photo credit: Yi Ching Juan, Mark van Tongeren, Jiji Liu
In January I will be visiting the great team of Soundtherapy Hong Kong again to teach various workshops around the theme “hidden dimensions of the human voice.” There are 6 themes to chose from – or you can do them all:
Workshop 1: Breath, Prana & Movement
Workshop 2: Sound Journey, Ocean of Voices
Workshop 3: Art of listening
Workshop 4: Polyphony of the body
Workshop 5&6 : Inner Voice & Outer Voice
All workshops are either morning (10 am – 1 pm) or afternoon (2:30-5:30 pm), in Causeway Bay / WanChai.
More details + registration on the Soundtherapy Hong Kong website here and on Facebook.
Hong Kong image Vertical Horizon by Romain Jacquet-Lagrèze, who published the photobook Vertical Horizon.
