Gong(ฆ้อง) Gathering: Workshop & Participatory Performance Series

is a series of workshops, collaborative sound-making, and participatory performances inspired by a community gathering gong ensemble found throughout Southeast Asia. Gong(ฆ้อง) Gathering is a collaborative platform for sharing, exchanging ideas, and collective conscious raising where elekhlekha invite guest artist collaborators MORAKANA, an_outskirt, Melissa Almaguer, and participants to collectively investigate, consciously reflect on, and unfold Southeast Asia's layers of political complexity through the continuity of oral and aural history and sound cultures' lineage. We'll dive into different roots and communities and learn their way of collaborative sound-making, ritual, history, and political complexity. We create our work out of the struggle of unlearning the current dominant system, relearning our histories, and looking to discover a common ground from Southeast Asia, the Global South, and beyond the nation-state and define decolonized possibilities.

Gong(ฆ้อง) Gathering Workshop is unique in its approach, aiming to democratize interaction between participants. This is achieved through the technique of hocketing, where a flowing line of melodies and rhythms is distributed among all participants. This approach eliminates the role of the dominant force and underlines the agency of each individual who participates. Our public engagement is designed to be a learning experience, divided into three section sessions, each with one collaborator artist/collective and with two parts, one workshop and one participatory performance. We'll learn through collective listening of curated tracks, reading texts, and discussing and analyzing together by drawing from hocketing patterns and inspiration based on our research of various Southeast Asian sound cultures and tuning systems. The second part will be a collaborative sound-making performance between elekhlekha, participants, and guest artist collaborators responding to the prior session. The juxtaposition of ancestors' knowledge and new aesthetic reconfigured to a new context aims to reclaim agency, the long-lost innovation, and reimagine the new process and new mode of expression.

Workshop & Class Design:

• The technical is beginner-level friendly and designed to be easy to follow.
• The workshop's first part will include inspiration, text reading, listening sessions, and discussion. We’ll also introduce basic tools and hands-on sound-making.
• Please see below for the preparation of each session to know what to bring to the particular workshop.
• The second part of the session is a collaborative performance and sound participatory using some know-how from the first week of the session.
• Photography disclaimer: Please be aware that photographs, audio, and video recordings will be taken during this event. By attending, you consent to your image being captured and used for release, publication, exhibition, and promotional purposes, including but not limited to social media, websites, and other marketing materials. If you do not wish to be photographed, please inform the event staff. We appreciate your understanding and cooperation!
• If you have any specific needs or require accommodations to fully participate in this event, please contact us at least two weeks prior to the event. We will do our best to meet your requests.

FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC WITH RSVP

Duo Session 3 – elekhlekha x Melissa Almaguer: Rhythmic Exploration & Embodied Sonic Experiences

The last duo session in the series features guest collaborator Melissa Almaguer. We will anchor the topic on the Southeast Asian rhythms practiced in gong ensembles using the participatory sound through our bodies and found objects. The participatory process with found objects is the heart of elekhlekha's Jitrs extended Gong Ensemble, inspired by the missing and disappearing gong instrument. In fact, in Southeast Asia and the Global South, we found parallel histories of the erasure and fading of sound cultures, rituals, and people's stories. 

For the workshop, elekhlekha and Melissa Almaguer will workshop and rehearse with participants on sound making using body, found objects, and collective aural memories to tune and create sounds and rhythms for community gatherings. 

The following week will be a collaborative performance between elekhlekha, Melissa Almaguer, and participants using the know-how and tools from the first session.

#gonggathering @elekhlekha @melialmaguer

Preparation (For the Sessions):

• The Duo session is designed to be rsvp in pairs (if you rsvp, please make sure to be able to rsvp on both Nov 12 and 26.)

Host or Publisher EFA Project Space