Check out all the activities for the coming months and scroll down for details.
RESONANCE RETREAT
2×4 days in January and March
Shruti Nights
four dates 4 Tuesday evenings in March, April, May, June
Concerts with Hans de Back’s
Thursday April 8 (at his place), Thursday June 17 (at Canjune)
Ocean of Voices
2,5 days in Puli/Nantou, May 15-17
Dulan Voice Yoga Retreat
Saturday June 12 / 10AM – Tuesday June 15 / 1 PM
As always, there are ongoing weekly Voice Yoga classes you can always join.
Please check with us first as some weeks are cancelled or in another location.
THE DETAILS PER EVENT
MIAOLI: RESONANCE RETREAT: MODULE 2
4 – DAY
R E S O N A N C E
INTENSIVE
MIAOLI
with mark van tongeren
MODULE 2 : 4 DAYS. BODY MIND AND BEYOND
Spiritual practices, brought back to earth. Channel your beliefs into sonic patterns.
March 20-23 (4 days) 2021
Day 1 Morning Breath, Prana & Voice Movements
Prana is the beginning of life force. Breath is one such process, and the one that happens to drive our vocal sound too. To develop your voice as a powerful tool for relaxation and transformation we first get back to the very basics.
Day 1 Afternoon Technical work
What do you remember, what got lost from Module One? Return to the technical challenges of good resonance, balance of body-mind exercise and good overtone singing skills. The basis of resonance is hard, concentrated work and a clear understanding of articulation processes. Solid practice to build on during the following days.
Day 2 Morning Spiritual practices and sounds: Christianity & Buddhism.
Immerse yourself in the grand ideas of Christianity and its lyrical musical legacy, as well as those of Buddhism and its esoteric musical legacy. What are Christian and Buddhist songs and styles in the context of overtone singing? What is common and what is different?
Day 2 Afternoon. Spiritual practices and sounds
How do these traditions resonate with you? How to adopt or adapt them? Literally copy them? Take one thing out of them, as inspiration? How important are resonance and overtones in them, and how to incorporate that in your own embodied practice?
Day 3 Morning Spiritual practices and sounds: more ancient, more new.
What can we learn from Tuvan people about animism and shamanism? And about their archaic form of overtone song, khöömei?
What can we learn from new personal visions such as the one of Michael Vetter?
Day 3 Afternoon Create new spiritual practices and sounds.
Do we need an -ism or a religion? What do we find in music itself? What do we find in ourselves? Can we take up sound and vibration as tools to go beyond yourself? How? What tools do we need? One tool we return to is the Overtone Analyser to see your voice.
Day 4 Morning & Afternoon. Quintessence of science sound and self
Do you follow basic techniques or develop a unique voice of your own? Can you ‘Catch the spirit of the moment?’ Do you like to create a slow ritual? Today every voice will find a place in various combinations, as we all create a final piece about Sound at the Centre of the Universe. Group sharing.
In these four days the main question is to find a good balance between technical and emotional singing, or to make deeper connections between the physical and the mental/psychological/spiritual. For the physical part we return again to singing exercises and anatomy and phonetics. We will learn how to embed these in practices that are meaningful and stimulating for you. We look at mental/psychological/spiritual aspects of religious forms of chanting and try out some examples. We also learn to expand the embodied knowledge that forms a bridge between these physical and spiritual realms. What is your inner orientation towards music, sound, body and spirituality? What are your inclinations as a singer? By answering questions such as these you can arrive at a healthy positive attitude for your practice.
I do not heal. I restore the harmony
Joska Soos, 1985

With Hungarian shaman and sound practitioner Joska Soos
LANGUAGE
The course will be conducted in English. Our interpreter Sunny Chen will be present to summarise or translate entire parts of the course into Mandarin, depending on the needs.
SESSION TIMES
Breakfast
Morning sessions: 9:30-12:30
Lunch
Afternoon sessions: 14:30-16:60 + 17:00-18:00.
Diner
Evenings are for resting, self practise, jamming…
PLACE
Miaoli, details to be announced.
REQUIREMENTS
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.
PRICES
Write us for pricing and registration inquiries.
Included:
- Tuition
- Lodging onsite in Miaoli
- Alll meals are included from breakfast on Day 1 up to and including xxx on Day 4 of both modules..
Not included:
- Transport to the retreat in Miaoli.
- Please bring some instruments of your own.
- It is also possible to pre-order a shruti box or Jew’s harps from Mark to help your own practice during and after the workshop.
REGISTER
Link.
NUMBER OF PARTICIPANTS
To ensure that each student gets personal guidance, there is a maximum of 15 participants.
OUR TEAM
This workshop is brought to you by Mark van Tongeren, Nancy Pune (organiser) and Sunny Chen (translator, organisor). For any questions about the contents in English ask Mark, in Chinese, ask Sunny or Nancy. For registration, lodging and food details ask Sunny. For contact info see below.
YOUR GUIDE
Mark van Tongeren is a Dutch sound explorer with a deep interest in the synergy of arts, sciences and contemplative traditions. Mark has over 25 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 all kinds of voice/music/performance practices for 30 years, often combined with contemplative practises (meditation, pranayama, yoga).
CONTACT INFO
SUNNY CHEN
Phone: 0912024285
Mail: ly.sunny.chen@gmail.com
NANCY PUNE:
Phone 0934-031-389
MARK VAN TONGEREN:
mark@fusica.nl
Phone 0910382749
LINE: 0910382749
Shruti Nights XV, XVI, …
Learn to free your voice using a simple drone instrument.
A series of four classes, starting the first or second Tuesday of the month.
The aim of these four sessions is to learn to improvise melodies with the shruti box. Every month we will take a close look at something else. In most classes there will be all kinds of structural vocal exercises to build up your skills, some structural improvising and some free explorations of your very own musicality.
Watch a video of Mark playing shruti box here:
https://youtu.be/BhiMamcPuMw?t=1519
FOR WHOM:
– people who recently bought a shruti box from Mark
– others who already have a shruti box and want to learn more
– others who want to learn to sing better with a drone instrument
– since the aim is to sing melodies, it is preferable if you can keep a tone. If you cannot hold tones (or you are ‘tone-deaf’, to use a terrible expression), you can still join in most of the program, but for some exercises as a passive participant.
WHAT YOU NEED
You can bring your own shruti box but it is not absolutely necessary, we always have several pieces on hand.
If you consider to buy an instrument but not sure what you need, and you join four classes, you can try one out at home between two consecutive classes.
DATES & TIMES
Four Tuesday evenings from 19:00 – 21:15.
PLACE
Canjune Training Center
4F, #3 , Lane 151, Fuxing S Rd. Sec. 2., Daan, Taipei
The Canjune Training Center is a 10 minute walk from MRT Technology Building, and 12 minutes from MRT Daan.
Language: English with Chinese translation.
PRICE
Regular: 4 lessons 4000 NT$
Discount: 4 lessons 3600 NT$. Those who bought (or buy) a shruti box from Mark, (old) Resonance students/ Shruti Night regulars (more than 6 months) / Student Identity Card holders and seniors (bring your ID) (請出示學生證).
REGISTER & INFO
In Mandarin: starysky1017@gmail.com
In English: mark@fusica.nl / Facebook / Phone 09 103 827 49
PAYMENT
Payment upon registration by bank or Paypal.
Bank information:
Bank code: 822.
Name of bank: China Trust
Beneficiary: Mark Christiaan van Tongeren
Account number: 163540306745
Make sure to send an email after your payment. We will confirm reception in a few days time.
AVAILABLE NOW! NEW SHRUTI BOXES !!
After a long wait because of Covid 19, our supplier in India finally sent a new batch of shruti boxes, which has just arrived.
The shruti box can be used for all kinds of purposes: playing for yourself or with others, learning more about musical structure and harmony, or free play.
Concerts with Hans de Back
Watch a fragment of our 2020 Butterfly concert here.
Hear us close-by at Hans’ place (April 8) or at Canjune’s (June 17).
Details through Una: unakao at yahoo . com . tw
Dulan: Voice Yoga Summer Retreat
Saturday June 12 – Tuesday June 15
Once again the successful Voice Yoga Retreat. Read more about the previous retreats by clicking on the link below:
In Voice Yoga’s dynamic group process, students go beyond their own habits and expectations. Often, something larger than ourselves emerges: a flow of hidden creative potential. We work with all kinds of sounds without meaning, without emphasizing a beautiful voice. They help us to get beyond common subject-object and mind-body dualities, and bring our unconscious selves and 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.
“this is better than sex” (comment by one student)
Designed and taught by Mark van Tongeren, a Dutch sound explorer with a deep interest in the synergy of arts, sciences and contemplative traditions. Mark has 25 years of experience in theatre, music and dance productions and holds a PhD from Leiden University’s Academy of Creative of Performing Arts.
VOICE YOGA Summer Retreat
**************************************
Mark’s Voice Yoga runs for over 8 years and brings together three 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.
Anyone can attend, no experience with yoga or music is necessary. Making sounds and learning about the connections between sound and movement, tones and physical vibrations, and not yoga per se, are the main purpose of this retreat. We are working to create an atmosphere of inclusion and acceptance. We make sure people of different levels of physical, mental, musical and other development feel supported and encouraged to grow and explore. We do our best to accommodate the program to the different levels of the participants and let you decide to skip or tone down certain exercises when you feel they are too demanding.
DATES & TIMES
We hold our sessions in Shufang’s Energy Healing, a gorgeous new yoga studio in Dulan, Taidong, isolated from nearby properties so we can make any sound we need to make. The studio has all utilities we need and is fully air-conditioned of course. There is a big lawn outside for musical workouts in fresh air, giant rocks to repose, and a few shady places.
Have a look here!:
Several comfortable options nearby in Dulan, different prices, some at walking distance.
This workshop is brought to you by Mark van Tongeren, Sunny Chen (translator) and Jackal Mei (general manager), and hosted by Shufang Wang.
(contact info below)
Mark van Tongeren is a Dutch sound explorer with a deep interest in the synergy of arts, sciences and contemplative traditions. Mark has over 25 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 years and all kinds of voice/music/performance practices for 30 years.
PRICES
CONTACT INFO:
Phone: 0936596910
Mail jackallala@gmail.com
LINE: Jackallala
Phone: 0912024285
Mail ly.sunny.chen@gmail.com
LINE: soleilc77
mark@fusica.nl
Phone 0910382749
LINE: 0910382749
“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
– Nancy
– Tina
– Kovida
– Nancy
– Jennifer
– Judy
– Tammy
The world is not for beholding; it is made for hearing.
Jacques Attali, Noise, 1977