SKANAPROJECT by Muriel Louveau : 2011

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Studio-Phoenix Blogspot: Muriel Louveau: Skana

Studio-Phoenix Blogspot: Muriel Louveau: Skana: Muriel Louveau : Skana , A look @ the album and the woman. By K.K.W. Not so long ago in the Pays de Laloire region of France (Laval to be...

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Skana The background

It all started when French singer, Muriel Louveau , and american composer Charles B Kim have produced and written "Skana " a cd entirely recorded in cyber space.

Skaņa, from the Latvian word for “sound,” is a collaboration between French vocalist/composer Muriel Louveau and American composer Charles B. Kim. Melding haunting vocals, ambient electronics and pulsating rhythms, Skaņa seeks to explore the area between day and night, light and shadow, wakefulness and sleep.
The music of Skaņa is inspired by ancient cultures and far off lands but also draws upon distinctly modern musical elements in order to create a sound that is both contemporary and classical.
In this regard, the past is prologue. This is music that would fit just as well in a modern concert hall as in an ancient Roman amphitheater.

Despite the music having groundings in the past, the production of this album was a very 21st century endeavor.

Muriel and Charles relied primarily on email and the occasional phone conversation to communicate ideas to each other and transferred audio files over the Internet. Thanks to modern technology, the end result is the same as if Louveau and Kim had worked in the same studio in the same city.

So the concept of staging Skana as a theatrical journey , with compatible , innovative artists who follow the same cyber creative process came as a natural consequence.

And this is what has been happening Muriel ,the dancer Emily Pope Blackman and the lighting designer Dale Knoth have been using Skype to draft ideas and transfer video files

to conceive and build up the structure of the performance.

We want to make our project evolve from the virtual to the physical world and to get it " tangible" to create an extended format .This is a work in progress , the first step towards a possible "multi dimensional "performance we'd like to develop,including other guest musicians,collaborations and research with artists of other disciplines

Through the sparse use of new technologies, scenography and creative lightings ,elaboration of a spatial lay out in response to the live elements, we will explore new contemporary territories and together write and perform a new score and story, across many medium

Listen to Skana album on bandcamp.com

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Skana and More live in NYC at Galapagos Sept 27, 2011

Muriel Louveau s performance "Skana and More" is an extended show,combining live vocals, music and dance.with surreal, watery lighting atmospheres. Muriel will perform songs of "Skana ", an album entirely produced in cyber space with american composer Charles B Kim, and other selected pieces. All are in foreign languages inspired by far-off lands, and coming from liturgical as well as poetic sources.

For this new version, Emily Pope Blackman joins Muriel to create dance works in response to her singing. Her solo will echoe to the variable tones reflected in Louveau's voice contrasting between strength and fragility, highlighting delicate rhythms as well as sustained fluidity.