Body music workshop for everyone interested in developing music skills and creativity

Body percussion is a technique of using our body as a percussive instrument: learning different ways to clap, snap, thump and stomp, and also making unusual sounds we can play with our hands, mouth, fingers, etc. During the Alice in WonderBand‘s workshop Body as an instrument we put the focus also on techniques of breathing and singing, as this is an instrument we always have handy with us and which we can use in any moment.
Singing and body percussion combined we call body music.

Music aspects are monophonic and polyphonic singing (two or more voices) and rhythm.

Body awareness is gained in three different bilateral orders (right and left, upper and lower limbs, front and back) by applying different body music types: static, semi-static and dynamic. If the participants have music education, more complex compositions can be achieved.


People with no music education are welcome

The workshop is conceived for everyone: people with no music education are welcome, as well as one that have it. Everyone has a sense of rhythm and music, because we have an everyday experience of it: heartbeat, breathing, footsteps. When you speak, your voice has its rhythm and melody. So we learn what we already knew, or rather, we return to the knowledge we had.

Every participant can execute a task according to his abilities and this way improve his set of skills and understand how to perform more complex tasks. Since we learn to overcome mistakes and to carry on doing the exercise in the group, we also learn to overcome the biases as „I don’t know how to sing“, „I don’t feel rhythm“, „I can’t do it“ and change the way we think and behave also in our daily life.

This way of work is an art therapy, a unique anti-stress program. Workshop as a concept is a small world for itself: everybody is equal and they participate and function by rules of a healthy group; everyone feels safe and can achieve personal development.

The workshop is conceived to satisfy different needs of modern people on multiple levels. The participants relax and plunge into the exercises, forgetting about everyday problems and develop essential skills. Concentration, coordination and synchronization of movement and voice, memory, dexterity, sense of space are what we work on. It develops intense activity in our own, inner, and also in outer space, with the group of workshop participants, with whom we share mutual rhythm and melody.

Stimulating creativity through execution of complex tasks

One of the workshop goals is to expand the territory of attention and multitasking ability. During exercises there are set tasks and other in which participants improvise freely, like walking through space and meeting and influencing each other. That is why this is not just a music workshop, but it approaches the whole being of the participant and stimulate creativity through execution of complex tasks.

Coordination of different actions: clapping, snapping fingers, singing or speech, movement in space, direction of eyes and gaze demand that participants are present in the space and time.

From simple tasks we build up to more complex, gradually adding steps, so participants do not feel discouraged and give up. Because the participants ARE the workshop! That is why every workshop is different. What is similar is laughter, working in relaxed atmosphere. Executing complex tasks requires complete concentration and attention and relaxed but active body and mind. We return to contact with our breath, which is the link to focus on the body and mind united and present.

The sound of body music

When we think about body and sound, we also think about dance and open body, free from tensions. We gain freedom through the process of learning, because we need to master the rules of the game. After that, the mind has a very serious and hard task, to understand that it needs to forget previously learned and let body do what it should!

Selected body music workshops

2024

  • New Balkan Rhythm workshop at the International Body Music Day, Kuća umetnica, Belgrade, Serbia
  • New Balkan Rhythm workshop, Rozbark Theater, Bytom, Poland
  • New Balkan Rhythm workshop, Kontakt. Przestrzeń Ruchu, Tańca i Muzyki, Krakow, Poland
  • New Balkan Rhythm workshops cycle, Kuća umetnica, Belgrade, Serbia
  • Workshop for folkloric dancers, Poznan, Poland
  • Workshop, Kulturzentrum Giesinger Bahnhof, Munich, Germany

2023

  • workshops at the New Balkan Rhythm festival, Irregular Rhythms of the Balkans
  • workshop at ARLEMM festival, Arilje, Serbia
  • workshop with women’s community, LALA Earthland festival, Mošorin, Serbia
  • workshop for preschool teachers, Professional meeting of educators, Bijeljina, Bosnia
  • online workshop for a work in progress of a clown theater performance, Portugal
  • workshop for the community, club K19, KC Abrašević, Mostar, Bosnia
  • workshop with Fige choir, Balkan odd rhythms and arrangement for the choir, Zadar, Croatia
  • online New Balkan Rhythm workshop at the International Body Music Day

2022

  • workshops at the New Balkan Rhythm festival, Irregular Rhythms of the Balkans, Sremski Karlovci, Serbia
  • Woodpeckers, body music for kids – a 9 month project of body music with 100 kids (age 7 to 10), Sremski Karlovci, Serbia
  • workshop of Balkan music, Samobor, Croatia
  • youth festival Bina mira, workshops with presentation, Postojna, Slovenia
  • online New Balkan Rhythm workshops

2021

  • workshops for youth, CEKOM, Zrenjanin, festival Self propelled, supported by Association Independent cultural scene of Serbia
  • workshops for youth, artists from Switzerland and Serbia, European project ConneXt, Popovica, Serbia
  • workshops for young actors, Panfiz festival, North Macedonia
  • workshops for the community: Pocket festival, Brsec, Croatia; Sremski Karlovci, Serbia; Krusevac, Serbia
  • May Month of Mathematics, annual manifestation in Belgrade, Serbia
  • workshops for youth, CEKOM, Zrenjanin, festival Self propelled, supported by Association Independent cultural scene of Serbia
  • workshops for youth, artists from Switzerland and Serbia, European project ConneXt, Popovica, Serbia
  • workshops for young actors, Panfiz festival, North Macedonia
  • workshops for the community: Pocket festival, Brsec, Croatia; Sremski Karlovci, Serbia; Krusevac, Serbia

2020

2019

  • workshops with InnHarmony and Stimm Lust choirs in Germany
  • workshop for performing artists, Udruga Cirkultura, Samobor, Croatia
  • workshop for people with sight disability, part of European project Use sound to watch around, Novi Sad, Serbia
  • workshop for youth, European Youth City Capital, OPENS, Novi Sad, Serbia
  • workshop for youth, artists from Switzerland and Serbia, European project ConneXt, Popovica, Serbia
  • workshop for adults, Coaching conference: Window into coaching in Zagreb, Croatia
  • open workshops for youth and adults in Cultural station Edjseg in Novi Sad, Serbia

2018

  • project Crossover, workshops and theater performance preparations and musical arrangements with people with dissabilities, project cooperation between Special school Milan Petrovic, Vojvodina Slovak cultural institute and Open circle Novi Sad, Foundation Novi Sad 2021, Novi Sad, Serbia
  • workshop for children, XXVI Kotor children theater festival, Kotor, Montenegro
  • workshop for children and adults, Mountain Music Fest, Divcibare, Serbia
  • workshop for adults, Festival Piano city Novi Sad, Novi Sad
  • workshops for children, Festival of social circus, cooperation with Goethe Institute and Clowns without borders, Gaziantep, Turkey

2017

  • workshops for children, International School of Belgrade, Serbia
  • workshops for children, adults and children with special needs, project All that my body can do, cooperation with NGO SkArt, Tivat, Montenegro
  • workshops for children, Festival of ecological theatre for children, Backa Palanka, Serbia

2016

  • workshops for children, festival Théâtre en fête, Novi Sad, Serbia
  • workshop for adults, Street players’ festival, Novi Sad, Serbia

2015

  • workshop for youth, European project Except, Hungary
  • workshop for adults, Transparenze festival, Modena, Italy

2014

  • workshops for children and adults, Novi Sad, Serbia

2013

  • workshops for socially challenged children, Center for social work, Novi Sad, Serbia