Vitamin S
Vitamin S is a free improvisation collective founded in 2000 in Auckland, New Zealand. It engages in performance, workshops, and community outreach and education, and facilitates such improvised music festivals as the annual Sound Invention Convention and other events. The non-profit collective is supported by grants from Creative New Zealand[1]and the Auckland City Council.[2]
Vitamin S presents regular weekly random trios. These trios, usually two per night, are drawn in advance from the Vitamin S pool using a customised interface that is part of the Vitamin S website. The pool currently contains over 100 improvisers and just over 50 non-performing interested parties. Often the participants may not have met before their performance. Regular participants include musicians, dancers, actors, poets, sound artists and a puppeteer. Each trio generally performs a set of between 30 and 45 minutes, which may be made up of several short improvisations or a single longer work.
There are few rules or constraints regarding the form that an improvisation will take. The open nature of Vitamin S enables musicians and performers from widely different backgrounds, genres and art-forms to perform together. Although rehearsal is discouraged for regular pool nights, pre-performance discussions of concept or approach are encouraged.
Workshops
The group offers regular workshops for improvisers. These are facilitated by experienced local improvising musicians such as Phil Dadson (From Scratch), Paul Buckton and James McCarthy or dancers such as Kristian Larsen, as well as performers from other parts of New Zealand, such as Anthony Donaldson and Jeff Henderson (Wellington). Whenever the opportunity arises Vitamin S also hosts workshops with international improvisers such as Susie Ibarra (New York), Eric Boeren (Netherlands), Manon-Liu Winter, Heinz-Peter Lindshalm/Petra Stump (Vienna), DJ Olive (NY), Mathieu Werchowski (France), The Necks (Australia/Europe), Mark Trayle (USA), The Thing and Experimenta (Argentina).
Festivals
Vitamin S is involved in curating festivals and events.
- Vitamin S Festival 2015 (March 2015)
- 10th Anniversary Festival (November 2012)
- iiii Festival (Oct 2011)
- Invented Instruments Orchestra (Sept 2011)
- Bingodisiac Orchestra (Apr 2011)
- Tony Buck (drums) and Magda Mayas (piano) (Berlin) (Feb 2011)
- Mani Neumeier (Feb 2011)
- The THING (Jan 2011)
- Four Nights of Fringe as Part of the Auckland Fringe Festival 2009 (March 2009)[3]
- Sound Invention Convention (February 2008) [4]
- Improvessence (June 2007)[5]
- Sound Invention Convention (February 2007)
- Bomb the Space (August 2005)
- Version (Electro Vitamin S) (2004)
References
- ↑ "Creative New Zealand Grants February-May Funding Round 2005–2006" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 13 June 2007. Retrieved 19 February 2008.
- ↑ "Auckland City Council Creative Communities Sub-committee". Archived from the original on 18 May 2011. Retrieved 19 February 2008.
- ↑ "Auckland Fringe Festival". Archived from the original on 14 February 2009. Retrieved 31 March 2009.
- ↑ "Vitamin s Launches s.i.c Festival". Nzmusician.co.nz. Retrieved 2015-03-29.
- ↑ "What's On". The New Zealand Herald. 5 July 2007. Retrieved 30 November 2011.