instanceNow - People Time Place
The 'instanceNow - People Time Place' is an interactive network performance. The performers interact, exchange data, create movement and audio-visual content in real-time from remote locations using online network and social media.
INSTRUCTIONS:
Explore the interactive network to discover the three track audio space with ambient sound artist KMRU, find more info and access the performances
Use your drag with your mouse (or finger on touch screen) to move around. Try zooming in and out. You can click on words to see what happens - or use the menu to the right. This artwork should be experienced with headphones.
INTERACTIVE MENU
Live performance series
instanceNow: People Time Place I
interactive network performance/installation with Opiyo Okach, Alejandro Olarté, Rapasa Nyatrapasa Otieno, Kamaru Joseph (KMRU) live online with Institute for Creative Arts (UCT) from remote locations  – nairobi, helsinki, var, newcastle-upon-tyne, cape town… Interactive visuals: Opiyo Okach Electroacoustic improvisation: Alejandro Olarté Nyatiti: Rapasa Otieno Sound art: Joseph Kamaru Jr (KMRU) Online dancers: Waithera Schreyeck, I-Fen Lin Video dancers: Juliette Omolo, Rapasa Otieno, Adam Chienjo, Papa Omugataya, Lonesome Bounty, Jack Bryton, Jackson Atulo
instanceNow – People Time Place II
interactive network performance/installation with Opiyo Okach, Alejandro Olarté, Rapasa Nyatrapasa Otieno, Kamaru Joseph (KMRU) live online with Institute for Creative Arts (UCT) from remote locations  – nairobi, helsinki, var, newcastle-upon-tyne, cape town… Interactive visuals: Opiyo Okach Electroacoustic improvisation: Alejandro Olarté Nyatiti: Rapasa Otieno Sound art: Joseph Kamaru Jr (KMRU) Online dancers: Waithera Schreyeck, I-Fen Lin Video dancers: Juliette Omolo, Rapasa Otieno, Adam Chienjo, Papa Omugataya, Lonesome Bounty, Jack Bryton, Jackson Atulo
instanceNow – People Time Place III
interactive network performance/installation with Opiyo Okach, Alejandro Olarté, Rapasa Nyatrapasa Otieno, Kamaru Joseph (KMRU) live online with Institute for Creative Arts (UCT) from remote locations  – nairobi, helsinki, var, newcastle-upon-tyne, cape town… Interactive visuals: Opiyo Okach Electroacoustic improvisation: Alejandro Olarté Nyatiti: Rapasa Otieno Sound art: Joseph Kamaru Jr (KMRU) Online dancers: Waithera Schreyeck, I-Fen Lin Video dancers: Juliette Omolo, Rapasa Otieno, Adam Chienjo, Papa Omugataya, Lonesome Bounty, Jack Bryton, Jackson Atulo
instanceNow – People Time Place IV
interactive network performance/installation with Opiyo Okach, Alejandro Olarté, Rapasa Nyatrapasa Otieno, Kamaru Joseph (KMRU) live online with Institute for Creative Arts (UCT) from remote locations  – nairobi, helsinki, var, newcastle-upon-tyne, cape town… Interactive visuals: Opiyo Okach Electroacoustic improvisation: Alejandro Olarté Nyatiti: Rapasa Otieno Sound art: Joseph Kamaru Jr (KMRU) Online dancers: Waithera Schreyeck, I-Fen Lin Video dancers: Juliette Omolo, Rapasa Otieno, Adam Chienjo, Papa Omugataya, Lonesome Bounty, Jack Bryton, Jackson Atulo
instanceNow – People Time Place V
interactive network performance/installation with Opiyo Okach, Alejandro Olarté, Rapasa Nyatrapasa Otieno, Kamaru Joseph (KMRU) live online with Institute for Creative Arts (UCT) from remote locations  – nairobi, helsinki, var, newcastle-upon-tyne, cape town… Interactive visuals: Opiyo Okach Electroacoustic improvisation: Alejandro Olarté Nyatiti: Rapasa Otieno Sound art: Joseph Kamaru Jr (KMRU) Online dancers: Waithera Schreyeck, I-Fen Lin Video dancers: Juliette Omolo, Rapasa Otieno, Adam Chienjo, Papa Omugataya, Lonesome Bounty, Jack Bryton, Jackson Atulo
Opiyo Okach – project conception, interactive visuals:
Opiyo Okach is a dancer, choreographer and media artist. He develops work between Kenya and France. He is known for improvisation and instant composition. His work interrogates relations of power, identity and perception. His work has toured Africa, Brazil, Europe & the US. He has received numerous international awards for his work. He has been a catalyst for the development of dance in East Africa. His current work is stepped in multi-disciplinary process integrating live performance and creative technology
Alejandro Olarte – Electro-acoustic improvisation:
Alejandro OLARTE is an electroacoustic musician, Doctor of Music, researcher, and pedagogue. Olarte is working for the Center for Music and Technology at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki Finland as Lecturer in Electroacoustic Music. His main interests include improvisation and performance with electronic instruments and synthesizers as well as computer music, sound art and pedagogy.
Rapasa Otieno – Nyatiti, Obakano, Orutu, Vocals:
Rapasa is a singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, music educator and contemporary dancer. He is an advocate of traditional music. While playing several indigenous instruments to East Africa, Rapasa’s principal instrument is Nyatiti, an eight-string lyre. It has travelled along the Nile with the Lüo community who play it and whose people have now settled along the shores of Nam Lolwe (Lake Victoria) where Rapasa is from. Through its storytelling, his music gives an insight into our ancestor’s wisdom. Rapasa is very focused on this heritage. He has in depth knowledge and understanding of traditional music particularly from the Lüo customs. Yet he has researched Nyatiti music in such a way that he is able to place it in the context of today’s music landscape. Rapasa has taken part both as a contemporary dancer and musician in various dance projects and collaborations. He spent several years exploring movement and the Nyatiti. Between 2011-2017 he was part of the ‘Performance Lab Nairobi’ headed by Opiyo Okach. He is currently taking part in Sage Artist in Residence where he can further explore linking traditional to contemporary Nyatiti music. He has released two albums. His debut album, “Tipona†(my shadow), was released in March 2020. Tipona is a spiritual journey through the eyes of a young village boy stepping into manhood. In collaboration with the University of York he created an EP in 2017 on the project Human Rights Defenders at Risk called “Songs of Equality†which was later released in December 2019 on most digital platforms.
You can find more details on Rapasa’s website https://www.nyatitinyadala.com/rapasa-s-bio
Joseph Kamaru (KMRU) – Sound artist:
KMRU is a sound artist, experimental ambient musician, based in Nairobi, Kenya. His delicate, textural compositions blend field recordings and indigenous sounds with expansive hypnotic drones. Initially producing beat-driven music, he earned international acclaim from his ambient works, such as the 2020 full-length Peel released on Editions Mego. KMRU’s has is a regular at Uganda’s Nyegenyege Festival, and performed acclaimed sets at Berlin’s CTM, Saint Petersburg’s Gamma Festival and recently presenting works for Mutek Montreal AI Lab and Unsound festival. Aside, KMRU presents a monthly show on Internet Public Radio, guests on NTS and Rinse FM, organizes workshops for Nairobi Ableton User group, and also a core member of Black Bandcamp.
Online dancers (would you dance with me online for free?):
Waithera Lena Schreyeck:
The german-kenian Waithera Lena Schreyeck, has dedicated her life to movement ever since she was nine. Following up on that she studied Contemporary dance in Denmark, England and Austria, graduating with a Dance-diploma in June 2019. Since then she worked as a freelance artist with the Salzburger Festspiele, the Co-op Dance Company, the Mozarteum, the “Ohne Stimme Company†and the German-french youth projects as dancer/ performer, choreographer and workshop leader. Most recently she has been working on the “Geschöpfe†production of Ben J. Riepe Company. As independent artist she mostly works on questions of identity but also site specific and participatory.
Online dancers (would you dance with me online for free?):
I-Fen Lin:
I-Fen Lin studied dance at the Chinese Culture University in Taiwan and received her diploma in stage dance from the Folkwang Hochschule in Essen (DE) in 2001. As a freelance dancer in Germany she worked mainly with Rodolpho Leoni (2000-2012) as a dancer and as his choreographic assistant for the FTS Folkwang Tanzstudio and the dance department of the Folkwang University of the Arts (2006-2012). She is also engaged as a dancer in various productions such as Mouvoir dance company by Stephanie Thiersch and Steptext dance project by Helge Letonja. Since 2012 she has been living in Lucerne and has worked in various projects and productions such as Marygold, Irina Lorez & co, Marisa Godoy, Nicole Davi, Beatrice Fleischlin, ASS Südpol and Hirshin & Gaul.
Her interest in connections between people and social mechanisms could be seen in her first own production “we are all in this together†(2017). Their second production with the working title “findet Jetzt statt†will be shown as a premiere at Südpol Luzern in 2020.
Other dancers (video archives):
Juliette Omolo
Rapasa Otieno
Adam Chienjo
Papa Omugataya
Lonesome Bounty
Jack Bryton
instanceNow: People Time Place
The project I’m working on for this online fellowship is titled ‘instanceNow: People Time Place’.
Like my precedent projects it involves artistic collaborators based in different parts of the world. Places from where they don’t necessarily come.
Alejandro Olarté the Colombian electro-acoustic composer & improviser is based in Helsinki.
Rapasa Otieno, the Kenyan Nyatiti player and dancer is based in Newcastle.
Joseph Kamaru (KMRU) the Kenyan ambient sound artist will work with us from Berlin – his temporary base.
Waithera Lena Schreyek, the Kenyan-German dancer is based in Cologne.
I-Fen Lin, the Taiwanese dancer is based in Luzern, Switzerland, but is she Chinese-Taipei, Taiwan-Taipei or Taipei-Taipei?
It is a contemplation, celebration and even interrogation on the idea being present in a particular place at a particular moment; the notion of ‘Me here right now’ when people, place and time are one. But what happens when place and ultimately time become multiple?
When ’Me here right now’ becomes ‘You me, here there, now then’ what is the nature of being present or absent in the moment.; what happens to spontaneity and interaction. What is the nature of seeing and hearing; of making signs and gesture; of negotiating space & time; of making sense of the other.
In the choreographic dispositive for ’instanceNow’ the creative and performance processes take place from remote locations. The performers and audiences interact and exchange data in real-time using online network and social media.
Multiple time, place and geography converge into an instance of shared difference; of body, image, sound, text; a moment of live performance.