Play As We Are: A Symposium of Somatic Sound Practices

Drawing on over 15 years of experience as artists, educators and researchers, (led by Maya Felixbrot, Alex Welch, and Ali Baybutt) have since 2020 been exploring exercises and formats that centre the body and movement in all aspects of playing.

The twin projects Moving Strings (‘like a dance company with instruments’) and Play As We Are (somatic sound practices for musicians of all kinds) were co-initiated by Maya Felixbrot and make central the body and movement in all aspects of music - rehearsing, creating, performing. Moving Strings was created to offer a space for experimentation, questioning, and creation related to movement and music, because such a space did not exist, and still largely does not exist, for musicians.

Ali and Maya specifically apply concepts and practices from the Laban/Bartenieff Movement System, which is a somatic approach to learning and analysing human movement. Violist Alex Welch is particularly influenced by mindfulness approaches. Saxophonist Aina Font is exploring movement for wind instrumentalists. Together, our collaborative research addresses ways of learning how to learn that influence the health, creativity and relational skills entailed in the working life of musicians.

After an immersion in some of our exercises and processes, we then will hold a discussion on your experiences and insights. We’re using the Symposium at the IAS Common Ground as a space to exchange with you, and to further articulate our work for publication as we move towards the first PAWA/MS book/manual. We look forward to bringing together a diverse group connected by a shared practical, theoretical, creative and/or pedagogical interest in movement, body, and music.

This practical Symposium is for musicians of all kinds - professional performers, students, educators, instrumentalists, vocalists, composers, sound artists, of any genre and background. We also welcome musical movers - those artists, choreographers, dancers, theatre-makers who work closely with music and are happy to move. To UCL, we especially welcome music scholars, researchers and pedagogues who are curious to further embody plural practices together in a space of exchange.

• 10:00 Doors open
• 10:10 Welcome and introduction to MS and PAWA
• 10:30 - 12:30 PAWA intensive practical workshop (warm up, exercises, creative exploration, application to something specific to each participant)
• 12:30 - 1:30 Lunch break
• 1:30 - 3:00 Discussion, reflection, articulation
• 3:00 - 4:00 Time to work alone/prepare group score/break
• 4:00 - 5:00 Performance sharing, including Maya Felixbrot performing To Remember A Place, and closing

Please note: some photography and filming will be taking place during this Symposium. Your consent will be sought on the day.

You are welcome to attend all day, 10 - 5pm, or for the performance sharing only, 4 - 5pm. Free to attend, please sign up to confirm your place.

Whilst this is a largely practice-led Symposium involving physical participation, we have some spaces for some joining as an observer, so please get in touch.

We have some funding for honorariums available to cover transport costs for participants who are not in regular full time employment such as students, freelance musicians, musicians with caring responsibilities, with additional needs. Please get in touch about this.

Please email Ali with any questions you might have: [email protected] and [email protected]

This Symposium has been created with the support from UASc, the Department of Arts and Sciences, part of SCCI, The School of Cultural and Creative Industries, and ARIEL, UCL's Centre for Creative Practice Research

Photo credits of Moving Strings: Shana Brown; Zsolt Szederkenyi

Maya Felixbrot is a musician, Violist and composer for film, theatre, dance and multidisciplinary works. She holds a BA and MA in composition (Royal Academy in The Hague), a BA degree in viola (Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance) and completed certification in LBMS in 2023. Her artistic research involves movement, sound, games and improvisation as a means of communication. As a soloist she performs as an improviser and performer of new music compositions, as well as in her own works, such as Traveling Viola that explores the connection between psychological patterns and patterns from nature through movement, sound and video. Maya is co-curator (along with Luke Dean) of Screen Dive: an internet-based platform promoting interactive sound art works and musical games. She is a member of Zvov duo with Double-bass player Shaya Feldman (Brussels), and No Horns with Violinist Miriam Dan-Boer (Amsterdam). Maya regularly performs at festivals and concert halls alongside alternative stages internationally, recording and participating in various albums. As an educator her guest lectures and workshops have been held at Rietveld Academy, The Royal Conservatory, Codarts, HKU, Amsterdam Academy for Theatre and Dance and the Musrara School of New Music. https://linktr.ee/pninax

Aina Font is a Valencian saxophonist currently based in Amsterdam and Berlin and she is the Portrait Artist 25’ HELLERAU European Centre of Arts by VAN MUSIC MAGAZINE. She is also a Selmer Artist and Vandoren Paris ambassador. She specialized in innovative approaches for classical music, contemporary music, multidisciplinary projects and music for an inclusive society. Her leitmotif: The search for a different kind of virtuosity, one that connects you with your body and through it, to your subconscious creative state. As a soloist with an international presence, she has performed solo with orchestras at some of the world’s leading concert halls, including the renowned Berliner Philharmonie. This season Aina celebrates a milestone in her artistic journey, her debut as a soloist at the iconic Palau de la Música Catalana after bringing her music to audiences across Thailand. Throughout her musical career, she has captivated with her musicality juries of venues such as Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, BBC Artists, Jeunesse Vienna, Muziekgebouw, BIMHUIS. Aina is guest teacher for bachelor and master students in international institutions, such as Hochschule für Musik Carl Maria von Weber Dresden, The Mahidol University Conservatory in Bangkok, Thailand, Princess Galyani Royal Institute of Music, Breitner Academy, and the Conservatorio Superior Nacional de Música de Puerto Rico. She is a multi-award winner artist, highlighting: Winner of the artist prize in the prestigious Berlin Prize For Young Artists 2024 , Klaus Thimm award 2025 for upcoming relevant artists in the German Music scene, the prestigious Primer Palau Jeunesses Musicales CAT, Keep an eye Project award 2024 NL, "Jeunes Talents Artist France 2023" with Duo Nim, Semifinalist in Andorra Sax Fest 2018. She is the current tenor player of Berlin-based Synthèse Quartet. She is also part of Duo Nim (saxophone and cello), Font-Tegnander ensemble (sound art) and the collective Moving Strings.

Dr Alexandra (Ali) Baybutt works as an artist, educator and researcher in the UK and Europe since 2004. For UCL, she teaches performance practice for the BA Creative Arts and Humanities, Department of Arts and Sciences. She is a Registered Somatic Movement Educator with ISMETA, having completed training in the Laban/Bartenieff Movement System (LBMS) in 2010, and works as a movement coach and since 2013 as an educator on modular certification programmes in movement analysis and somatic practice, currently with WholeMovement (IT), and for EMove Institute (NL). She holds a PhD from Middlesex University (2020) and her first monograph was published in 2023, with support from a post-doctoral fellowship from the Institute of Advanced Studies, UCL. She leads skills classes in LBMS for musicians at Rose Bruford College on the Music Theatre degree, as well as for Barefoot Opera. Current research and writing projects include a book on the work of Play As We Are/Moving Strings with Maya Felixbrot, with whom she has been researching, teaching and exchanging since 2015. Ali is working on part three of a performance project with poet Mary Paterson concerning deep time, limits of translation, and gesture. Her work across movement performance, education and research remains concerned with space: cellular, social, cosmic. www.alexandrabaybutt.co.uk / https://profiles.ucl.ac.uk/87148-ali-baybutt UCL staff profile with links to publications.

Maya Felixbrot, Alex Welch, Noortje Kohn - Viola, Shana Brown - Violin, Jonathan Nagel - Double-bass, Camille Verhaak - Clarinet, Aina Font - Saxophone, Irene Sorozabal - Voice and Recorders, Manuela Tessi - movement artist.

http://www.movingstrings.com/#/

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