Listening Bodies + Giving Tuesday

Posted by: mikronesia
Categories: news • performances • support • teaching
27 Nov

Hello, thank you for opening and reading this email. I know the amount of end-of-year-holiday emails can be overwhelming!
TLDR 
Click this link:
https://igg.me/at/listeningbodies
watch and donate!
  Today is Giving Tuesday. I wanted to tell you about an Indiegogo campaign I just started with my collaborator from Listening Bodies.

As I developed more and more as an artist and practitioner of meditation, I found a natural calling for teaching and that people were interested in my life experiences and what I was sharing.   After I completed my Deep Listening certification I found a synthesis of my music and meditation practice where they were no longer separate. However, one section of my practice and teaching that was missing was body practices… until I met Monica Gentile.
Her teaching style and areas of expertise (somatic, movement, dance, yoga (Hatha and Laughter)) fit perfectly with what I was teaching. Very organically and effortlessly, we planted the seeds of what is a holistic and integral practice called Listening Bodies.
We’ve taught in Philadelphia and Berlin this year and the response has been overwhelmingly positive. We taught classes for dancers, a sound walking class, an ASMR class and will lead a 2-day workshop in a few weeks here in Berlin. 
We have been invited to bring Listening Bodies to Mexico. We will teach our workshop at residencies, schools and project spaces in six locations in Mexico and two in Costa Rica. We will be paid small fees and offered a place to stay. However, we need to pay our own travel costs… thus the Indiegogo. A grant we were applying for did not work out, so we’re asking for your help!
If you’ve read this far you are a dedicated and supportive person! We need to raise $2500 for our flights from Europe and back and flights, buses, and taxis around Mexico and Costa Rica.
If you are reading this email you may have supported my work in the past. So now during this time of giving we are asking for more support to help grow our family of Listening Bodies to include artists and communities in Mexico and Costa Rica.
At a minimum check out our Indiegogo page and video (the end is funny 🙂 https://igg.me/at/listeningbodies

Have a safe, peaceful and light holiday.
With love from Christmassy Berlin, Michael and Monica 

P.S. Please feel free to respond to this newsletter email. I read all the responses and I love hearing from you. Also please feel free to add me to your own mailing list to keep up to date with what you’re doing and staying connected.

Berlin Projects

Posted by: mikronesia
Categories: performances • recordings • sound design • talks • workshops
22 Nov

Good morning or evening friends. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone in the US! I hope this day is filled with the feelings of gratitude and abundance for the collective interdependence of life. I am halfway through my three-month residency at GlogauAIR in Berlin and I just wanted to share some projects in my life for which I am grateful.

Spektrum Performance

When I arrived in Berlin, I performed at one of my favorite venues in Berlin: Spektrum. I gave a concert of my field recording landscapes sounds where I created a surrealists collage of environmental sounds from around the world during my travels. I also made a video of found footage from around the world wide web that I showed at the performance. I am very grateful to Aude Françoise from SCOPE, Ienke at Spektrum and DJ Solitue who presented a mix of former Liebig12 residents and for connecting me with Spektrum last year.


Scope Sessions

The second event I did was a talk on my work and process at Scope Sessions. I focused on my work synthesizing Deep Listening, meditation, Buddhist philosophies, field recording, and ambient music. I also played some samples of my work. It was very well received and help crystallize some things for me in my world. I am also very grateful to meet the host Tobias Raayoni Last.

Speaking at Scope

Speaking at SCOPE Sessions

Red Bull Session

Last week was very busy for me here in Berlin! I welcomed two close friends to town at the same time. My collaborator from Mixes from the Field, Sharon Renee Stewart was in town. We met some Deep Listening friends, did some walking and field recording. At the same time, my old buddy and music legend King Britt was in town. We hung out for three days, recorded an episode for my podcast, and recorded at Red Bull Studios Berlin. I’m super grateful to King for inviting me to the recording session with Hainbach, Christina Wheeler and Clara Hill where I got to play one of my favorite instruments, the Fender Rhodes piano! The sessions were magical and the sound at Red Bull was extraordinary. I can’t wait to hear the final mixes of this collaboration.

Sharon Recording at Templehof

Sharon recording at Templehof

The crew at Red Bull Studios

Listening Bodies Project

This time in Berlin has allowed me to deepen my working relationship with choreographer/dancer/movement researcher Monica Genitle. We organically came together to develop a teaching framework that combines my music and Deep Listening practices and her somatic body practices. We’ve done two classes here in Berlin. One at Lake Studios Berlin for dancers and one sound walk workshop at GlogauAIR and SomoS (we had a fairytale-like sound walk in the first snow of the season at night). We will do one more class exploring synesthesia and ASMR as listening body practice at Liebig12. And on Dec 10/11 we will offer a two-day workshop at Tatwerk in Berlin. We will have more exciting Listening Bodies news next week about our plans in 2019!

From the Listening Bodies Sound Walk

From the Listening Bodies Sound Walk along the Paul-Lincke-Ufer
ListeningBodies.com for more information…
Once again, thank you all for your support.

Have a safe and peaceful holiday.

<3 MRM