13th MÓZG FESTIVAL - International Contemporary Music and Visual Arts Festival

Joey Baron
& Robyn Schulkowsky (concert)
8:00 PM

Unconstrained by standard tonal and rhythmic paradigms, the duo of master musicians Robyn Schulkowsky and Joey Baron continue to explore the precise, noisy, and beautiful. The duo's past 15 years have included the release of the CD “Dinosaur Dances”, a residency at Grand Central Station NYC, ongoing work with data expert dr. Nilam Ram and Studio Lab “Playing The Archives”, close work with composer Christian Wolff, along with performances and workshops in South America, the U.S., Europe, and China. The duo's second album is scheduled for release in December.

Joey Baron started playing at age 9. Over the years, he has developed a unique, masterful approach to making music with the drum set, evident in his extended tenures with jazz icons Jim Hall, Steve Kuhn, and John Abercrombie. His long-term collaboration with Bill Frisell was documented and released “JUST LISTEN” on Relative Pitch Records in 2013. Presently, Mr. Baron's activities include solo concerts, workshops, master classes, plus ongoing projects with John Zorn, “Now This” with Gary Peacock and Marc Copeland, “Sound Prints” with Joe Lovano and Dave Douglas and the new trio of Danish guitarist Jakob Bro with bassist Thomas Morgan.

Percussionist Robyn Schulkowsky is a world-renowned experimental music performer and composer engaged in continuous exploration of new sound dimensions and development of new and unusual instruments. She has premiered and recorded some of the most important percussion works of the 20th and 21st centuries, performing in solo tours around the globe. Schulkowsky works or has worked with composers Karlheinz Stockhausen, Iannis Xenakis, Morton Feldman, John Cage, Christian Wolff, artists Guenther Uecker and Manon de Boer, choreographers Merce Cunningham and Sasha Waltz and many others.

Maria Stokłosa / Takako Matsuda / Irad Mazliah / Dominik Strycharski
(concert / performace)
8:00 PM

Gathered by the Warsaw Dance Department on the floor od WDD studio in the Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw, under the auspices of MÓZG FOUNDATION as part of the 13^th Mózg Festival – Festival of Contemporary Music and Visual Arts, we will take you on an underground escapade in search for what lies deep inside - subground, sub-soul, sub-space and that is where we are going to dance. Let the subculture emerge on the surface once more.

Irad Mazliah, artistic director of Warsaw Dance Department

Dominik Strycharski is a Polish composer, recorder player, vocalist, improviser, performer and publicist. He is a versatile creator, who is fascinated with almost every form of music. He plays and composes contemporary jazz in many electric and acoustic forms, contemporary, electronic, theatrical music, posthiphop, noise and different varieties of improvised music. He has his own project Doministry and plays in Pulsarus, Organic Panic and Prophetic Fall bands. For over ten years he has been doing experimental vocal workshops, where he combines the development of one’s own voice awareness with improvisation and group activities. Voice is treated like an instrument and improvisation like a basic tool of human creativity.

Irad Mazliah is an independent stage artist, performer, choreographer, interdisciplinary artist and therapist. He is the Artistic Director and founder of the Movementum Foundation. He created a dance centre / culture house that offers professional training for contemporary dancers and is also a body studies centre – Warsaw Dance Department in the Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw. The centre’s goal is to enable its partners to grow and create a deep public awareness to movement and body culture. He has initiated an open cycle of improvisation nights for professional dancers, musicians and performers called # I M SPACE. He actively promotes contemporary dance and body culture by creating, teaching and facilitating artistic and research projects in Poland. The approach to the work of a stage artist, "the performer as a chameleon in human skin" led Irad to an outreach toward collaborations with creators as an extension of his own work. He is an author of stage design for his own creations as well as of scenography and stage design for different productions in the field of theatre and dance.

Maria Stokłosa is a choreographer and a dancer. She graduated from the School for New Dance Development in Amsterdam and the contemporary dance department in London Contemporary Dance School at The Place. She is an active participant of dance arena in Poland. In 2013 she founded Centrum w Ruchu - a collective and a place for experimental choreography in Warsaw. Since 2008 she has been organising workshops and choreographic residences in Dom Pracy Twórczej Burdąg. As an educator with Ilona Trybuła she co-created Laboratorium Improwizacji, she also runs her own educational program Lab Nowego Tańca. She currently teaches at the Szkoła Pedagogów Teatru in the Theatre Institute and in Warsaw Dance Department. She also gives many dance, improvisation and choreography workshops in Pola and abroad.

Takako Matsuda is a contemporary dancer. She presented her choreographies on many festivals, mainly in the U.S.A., Finland, Japan and Polamd. She co-operated with New Circus, Circo, Pori Dance Company (Finland), Polski Teatr Tańca (Poznań) and Teatr Tańca Zawirowania. She currently co-operates with Warsaw Dance Department where she works as an instructor and choreographer. Her dancing includes elements of Budoh, Butoh and forms drawn from Asian martial arts. The New York Times called Takako Matsuda “a dancer of magical silence”.

ELI (dj set)
9:30 PM

ELI - Eliza Krakówka (Lezbend, DetroitZdroj !, Women's Pistols) debuted in 2001. Since then she played in most popular clubs in Poland, festivals and events abroad. In 2002, together with two of her friends she set up a popular DJ trio - Lezbend. They were organizing Hot Chili and Lez Dance parties. In 2003, Lezbend signed a three-year contract with the US booking agency, which was responsible for organizing Lezbend’s US tour. A year later, the girls played at the Diesel-U-Music Festival in Amsterdam and at several festivals in Germany. In 2005, Lezbend won a New York Express DJ Award.

Eli as the promoter of Amoeba Agency, was also organizing big events in Poland – the oldest house parties called Love Bomb and also a series of events like: Dym, Audio Trash, Alfa Beta Cocktail, W festival on the famous pier in Sopot and Isle of MTV. She was working with artists such as Massive Attack, Morcheeba, Goldie, Faithless, DJ Assault, Felix da Housecat, Medicine 8, Phil Kieran, Jon Carter, Bjork, Telepopmusik, Peaches, Stereo MC's, Michael Mayer, DJ Koze and many more. Since 2006, she was the Art Manager in the 55 club in Warsaw, where (in 2007 and 2008) she twice won Activist’s Best Club Award called Nocne Marki.

She is the co-founder of detroitZDRÓJ! Collective, in which together with bshosa and dr dip, organized music events by involving excellent artists from all over the world like carl craig, 2000 and one, pole, among others. Eli currently plays solo or in the "Women's Pistols" collective.

Ecofilms about us
„Homo sapiens”, dir. Nikolaus Geyrhalter (movie)
8:00 PM

What is going to be left of our civilisation once we all finally extinct? Empty spaces, abandoned buildings, shops, cinemas, hospitals, offices, schools, libraries, amusement parks and prisons. Ruins of cities will become more and more overgrown with plants. Overgrown landfills and water reservoirs or asphalt roads falling apart… After our extinction, the space, where we live will be once again taken over by nature from whom we brutally tore it away. The film was shot over the period of 4 years in Europe, USA, Japan and Argentina and it is a critical portrait of our civilisation. The film is constructed exclusively from precisely composed, static shots devoid of any commentary. We take a look of mankind’s life on Earth, its’ relationship with animals and other humans, wars. There are no pictures of private spaces. We only see public spaces: offices, sports halls, warehouses, schools, hospitals, shops. We discover the way our life is organised on the planet as well as the way the development of technology affects the degradation of our civilisation. We see abandoned or forgotten places and those recovered by nature and animals. The film is an in-depth look into the role of humans in the hour of ecological crisis. Do we still have a chance for change? What should we do in order to achieve that? Is it already too late? This meditative poetic essay about the finiteness of our species encourages us to reflect upon the fragility of a human being and the passing of time and the moment.

Ecofilms about us
„The Tipping Point. Energy aNew.”,
dir. Łukasz Bluszcz (movie)
5:00 PM After the screening we invite to a meeting with the leading Polish eco-philosopher Andrzej Papuziński and the director of the film Łukasz Bluszcz.

It is the first Polish full-length documentary film about climate change and the inevitable energetic revolution. The creators clearly show the reasons the climate changes suddenly and the challenges our civilisation will have to face. We find out what tipped the balance of the climate on Earth and the consequences it caused. Is future based entirely on coal and oil real? Can we deal with smog and what has to happen in order to avoid a tragedy in the scale of the extinction of dinosaurs? Marcin Dorociński looks for answers to these and many other questions. The whole world, including Poland, faces a spectre of flood, drought, lack of drinking water and food. Warm radiators on chilly days, ice cream in the summer, light or running water, not to mention fuel for cars – we do not want to give up any of that but we will be forced to produce energy in different ways. The makers of the film draw the attention to alternative sources of energy and problems that proponents of these have to deal with. The film is a warning against a disaster and proposes solutions that might help avoid it. The changes are already happening and they are also visible in Poland. We just found ourselves at the tipping point.

Łukasz Bluszczis a producer, director and documentary screenwriter associated with Vision House Productions. He worked as a journalist and a local producer for global information stations such as BBC, Al Jazeera, Discovery, Channel 5 and others. He is the author of screen scripts for documentaries such as ”Efekt Chopina” (BBC World, TVP2) and ”Był Bunt” (Al Jazeera, TVP Kultura). He producer and directed programs for Discovery Channel Poland: ”Przystanek Bieszczady”, ”Polska: Operacja Zmiana” and others. „The tipping point. Energy aNew” is his full-length director’s debut.

Andrzej Papuziński is a philosopher and sociologist. He is a professor at the Institute for Political Sciences at the Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz, he is the head of the Department of Balanced Development Policy. He is the author of 4 monographs and ca. 110 scientific articles. He is the editor and co-editor of 8 group works. He won the Minister’s of Science and Higher Education prize for his book ”Życie - Nauka - Ekologia. Prolegomena do kulturalistycznej filozofii ekologii”. His professional interests evolved from philosophy of religion, through Catholic theory of culture and then contemporary philosophical grounds in the field of philosophy of culture, to philosophy of ecology and ecological ethics, the issue of ecological education and environmental policy with special reference to the principle of environmental sustainability.

Jakapi / Klimczak / Włodkowski / Magura (concert)
8:00 PM

Roomet Jakapi is a vocalist and improviser from Estonia. By means of his unconventional vocal sounds, enriched with live electronics, he aims to create sonic trips and textures marked by surprises and ruptures. He has performed with Emilio Gordoa, Fred Frith, Louise Dam Eckardt Jensen, Jerzy Mazzoll, Sławek Janicki, Gintas K, Taavi Kerikmäe, Mart Soo, Phlox, Ensemble U:, and many other musicians and groups. As a frontman of the avant-rock band Kreatiivmootor, he has performed at various international festivals such as Iceland Airwaves, Popkomm, Waves Vienna and SKIF. He is also an academic scholar whose main areas of teaching and research are early modern philosophy and philosophy of religion.

Aleksandra Klimczak is an unusual soprano and as she calls herself – a [non]opera singer. She experiments with voice and electronics. She attempts to break the genre barriers in music and different art forms. On one hand she performs with classical music repertoire and on the other hand she plays with improvisation, extended vocal techniques, fieldrecording and performance art. She is a graduate of the Faculty of Vocal and Drama at the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music. Her preserve since the start of her studies is co-operation with directors and composers of the young generation, especially as the performer of previews. She constantly searches for unusual ways of existence for an opera singer. She participates in innovative projects that combine opera with dramatic theatre.

Radosław Włodkowski is an experimental musician, programmer and sociologist. He participates in improvised projects mostly within the Warsaw music arena. He started playing when he was 7 years old. He graduated from music school and piano is his primary instrument. Besides keyboard instruments he also plays flutes, a clarinet and acoustic guitar. He also uses sonorism methods and various objects. He tries to consciously combine seemingly opposite worlds: advanced technology with the most primal things, harmony with disharmony, form and its lack. He combines synthetic and organic sounds, creating a surprising and at the same time characteristic and coherent world.

Krzysztof Magura is an improvising and experimenting guitarist. He was born in Warsaw and is related to the arena of more or less jazz music focused around Mózg and Przestrzeń Prywatna. He is the co-creator of the duo Dadavoodoo and many postpunk, folk, prog and free-jazz configurations with Warsaw based musicians. He is a journalist, who promotes independent music. He once worked at Radio Aktywne, Gentleman magazine and currently he writes for Infomuza portal.

Marina Cyrino / Merje Kägu (concert)
9:00 PM

Marina Cyrino explores flute playing through a diversity of interactions with light, movement, theatrical elements and objects. She is also a musician who has deep issues with writing her bio. It is like panic of reducing herself to an excerpt of herself, fear of being reduced into a few words like a showcase, fear of writing in the third person even if it is herself, who writes and puts quotes when she decides to speak with her own voice: "I spend part of my life playing music, another part trying to learn how to be a mountain. I have a particular interest in the word metamorphosis. Today I breathe, someday I won´t."

Merje Kägu is an Estonian guitarist and composer, who studied jazz guitar at the Estonian Academy of Music and graduated the master program in improvisation at the Gothenburg Academy of Music and Drama. She has appeared with her original music and collaborated with inspiring musicians in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Scotland etc. “Playing music is something that attracts my attention and curiosity. I feel that inspires me. I like to unite compositions and improvisational bridge in between and create a dialogue that is intimate, personal and storytelling. Where words fail, music speaks. Musical truth is something dynamic.”

bAgg*fisH (concert)
8:00 PM

BAGG*FISH is an energetic noise and acoustic impro duo. It’s psychedelic and poetic at the same time. It consists of a research-worker highly focused on the instable feedback texture and an ever-convincing drummer sharing the trip. While creating poetical high speed virtuosity, BAGG*FISH refer to a discourse relating to Coltrane's Interstellar Space, Jimi Hendrix and today's impro and noise music. They expanded their interest from an acoustic to an electro acoustic sound.

Michael Fischer – tenor- & (no effect) feedback_saxophone
Marcos Baggiani – drums

Michael Fischer works on the speech immanence of sounds on saxophone, violin, soundscapes and conducted instant compositions. With his elaboration of the feedback_saxophone he contextualizes the saxophone within an emanating sound-noise sculpture, shaped by several parameters like micro-manipulations of the pads, voice a.o.

Marcos Baggiani, born in Buenos Aires, moved to the Netherlands in 2001 where he studied at the Amsterdamse Hogeschool voor de Kunsten and started performing within the fields of jazz, improvised music, theatre and performance, intensely involved in interdisciplinary settings with dancers.

Audrey Chen & Richard Scott
(koncert/spektakl multimedialny)
10:00 PM

Audrey Chen is a Chinese-American musician. She turned to cello at age 8 and voice at 11. After years of classical and conservatory training, in 2003 she started looking for a more individually honest aesthetic. Chen’s work delves deeply into her own version of narrative and non-linear storytelling. A large component of her music is improvised and her approach to this is extremely personal and visceral. Her playing explores the combination and layering of the homemade analogue synthesizer, preparations and traditional and extended techniques in both the voice and cello. She works to join these elements into a singular ecstatic personal language. Over the past decade plus, her predominant focus has been her solo work. She has more recently begun to shift back towards the exploration of the voice as a primary instrument.

Richard Scott is a composer and improviser of electronic music residing in Berlin. He has worked with a variety of obscure digital technologies, such as the Buchla Lightning and Thunder and his self-designed WiGi system for the last years he has been mostly focused on the limitless possibilities of analogue modular synthesis. Initially inspired to play electronic music by teenage experiences of Cabaret Voltaire and Stockhausen, he was introduced to free improvisation in the 1980s by John Stevens, studied saxophone with Elton Dean and Steve Lacy, and electroacoustic composition with David Berezan and Ricardo Climent.

Audrey Chen – voice
Richard Scott – analogue synthesizer

“Hiss and Viscera” presents a striking debut recording from two highly distinctive voices in the richly varied Berlin improvising scene. On the face of it the human voice and analogue synthesizer may appear to have little in common but Chen and Scott share an intuitive, corporeal and dynamic sound world out of which an intense and sustained musical conversation develops. Phrases and interjections bounce and ricochet between Chen’s vivid lexicon of glottal pops, rasps and expulsions and Scott’s exhaustive catalogue of electronic clangs, plosives and propulsions. The resultant musical conversation may not always seem entirely human in origin, conjuring sonic images of stories, languages and environments populated by many unearthly creatures, real or imagined.

Jan Młynarski (concert)
8:00 PM

Jan Emil Młynarski graduated from prestigious Drummers Collective in New York. As music producer, composer and instrumentalist he created his own band 15 Minut Projekt that released two albums. He co-compose music for theatrical play “Kamień I Popioły” staged in Teatr Powszechny in Warsaw. He is the member of Oszibarack band, music director of “I Love You’ musical staged in Studio Buffo in Warsaw, the leader and producer of Młynarski Plays Młynarski project. He is the leader of POLE trio, a member of Baaba band and he is the co-creator of 67,5 Minut Projekt. He participates in “Głosy Gór” project, where he combines jazz with modern Polish classical music under maestro Jerzy Maksymiuk. He is the creator and leader of Warszawskie Combo Taneczne group and the co-creator of Jazz Band MłynarskiMasecki. Młynarski is connected with Warsaw based label LADO ABC. His solo performance is a fragment of his musical reality on one hand, while on the other hand it is a synthesis of many influences that for years have bee shaping him as a musician and artist. An acoustic percussion set, which is his basic mean of expression, is surrounded with experimental electronics. His solo act includes influences of hip-hop, African and Polish rhythms as well as minimalism and ambient.

EmptySet (concert/multimedia spectacle)
10:00 PM

Emptyset is the innovative electronic duo of James Ginzburg and Paul Purgas. The duo composes within a complex set of self-imposed parameters or rule sets and the results of their expeditions on the album Borders are at once minimal and visceral. Focusing on shifting timbral changes over melody, Emptyset’s work is an exploration of the relationship between rhythm, texture and space. Each project’s framework and parameters dictate how the sound or performance evolves. In the past, Emptyset have explored the ways in which the sonic and spatial interact within different architectural contexts: often site-specific locations. Borders takes a different approach, centering around the performative and the performer. Having each created their own tactile instruments, a six-stringed zither-like instrument and a drum, Emptyset focuses on how organic sounds interact with the analogue processes. Contrasting typical approaches to making electronic music, Emptyset set out to emphasize live performance rather than creating sequences within devices. While Purgas and Ginzburg utilize vintage analogue electronics, compressing and distorting the signals, the album itself is performed entirely live, where subtle movements make for substantial changes in sound.

Ginzburg, now Berlin based, runs a network of record labels including electronic music label Subtext and Arc Light Editions, whose reissues include a work by Arthur Russell. He’s a prolific producer and remixer for both independent and major labels, with diverse projects such as Faint Wild Light, Ginz and more recently Bleed Turquoise.

Purgas, now based in London, founded the We Elude Control label in 2009, a curated collection of rare experimental music. Purgas is an artist, writer and curator who has presented projects with Tate, Whitechapel and Serpentine Galleries, and he is also an active promoter of electronic music in eclectic spaces from a carpark to a Modernist pavilion.

Sam Williams - video