Voice Act MUFF
Voice Act is a project brought to life through the initiative of Anna Gadt. Its premise is the creation of a shared vocal narrative arising from four distinct female musical experiences: folk music, classical music, jazz, contemporary music, and free improvised music.
The human voice is here, above all, an expression of subjectivity and individualism. It is heard and listened to, primal in its expression. The voices — without the support of instruments and free from electronic processing — combine, resonate, appear and fade, exist together and apart.
Voice Act was originally conceived as a musical reference to the ideas of Ohad Naharin, creator of the GaGa movement language. That language is based not so much on specific techniques as on moving according to an individual narrative, including in the context of encounters with another person.
MUFF is the title of an improvised concert during which the syllabic spontaneity and elusiveness that has characterised Voice Act’s utterances so far will also open up to working with words. Say, muff, move… Will the meaning that a word drags along with it bring relief? Or perhaps consternation and deconstruction?
Performing:
Anna Gadt
Marta J. Bogusławska
Natalia Kordiak
Gosia Zagajewska
Production:
concept and text: Voice Act
production: Marta Bogusławska, Anna Gadt, Natalia Kordiak, Gosia Zagajewska
visual identity: Aleksandra Ołdak
sound engineer: Michał Kupicz
The Hashtag Lab Contemporary Music Space is co-financed by the Capital City of Warsaw.
The media patron of the Hashtag Lab Contemporary Music Space is POLMIC.PL and Dwójka Polskie Radio.
If you want to know more about the artists:
Anna Gadt
An improvising jazz vocalist, singer, and composer, classically trained pianist. A representative of the European jazz scene, combining free improvisation, classical music, and contemporary jazz. She has seven albums to her name. She has performed in France, Germany, Switzerland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Slovakia, among other countries. In Poland she has appeared at the Jazz Jamboree, Jazz Juniors, Jazz Jantar, and Jazz nad Odrą festivals, among others. Winner of the Grand Prix at the international Jazz Struggle competition for singing musicians (the award was presented by the jury president Billy Harper). She is the leader of a quartet and the Renaissance trio. She has collaborated with, among others, Markus Stockhausen, Liberty Ellman, and Paweł Mykietyn. Three times nominated for the Fryderyk music award in the categories of Debut, Artist, and Album of the Year.
Marta J. Bogusławska
pianist, teacher, improvising woman.
Natalia Kordiak
Vocalist, improviser, composer, and educator. An artist nominated for the Polish Phonographic Academy’s “FRYDERYK 2020” award. An exploring artist who uses her own language of improvisation. In music she values the authenticity of dialogue, being present, and creating a space where the boundary between reason and madness blurs and reality becomes abstraction. Winner of international awards, leader of her own quintet with which she has released two albums for the Slovak label Hevhetia and for the Fundacja Słuchaj!, and a member of Voice Act. For several years she has been travelling through Asia and Europe, performing, leading workshops, and taking part in artist residencies. She has performed at numerous music venues and festivals in Poland — including Jazz Juniors, Jazz Jantar, Voicingers, and NOSPR — and abroad, including in the Netherlands, Denmark, France, the Czech Republic, Latvia, England, India, China, and Vietnam. In 2023 and 2024 she spent two semesters on an artist residency at Swarnabhoomi Academy of Music in Chennai, India. For many years she collaborated with the National Philharmonic in Warsaw. Kordiak also served as the coordinator of the Polish edition of the Voicingers festival and as co-organiser of the international Jazzbus Showcase. In November 2024, together with Piotr Orzechowski and Kuba Więcek, she organised the first edition of the kxntrst music festival. A graduate of the “Bednarska” secondary school and the Karol Szymanowski Academy of Music in Katowice, where she obtained both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees. She is currently a doctoral student at the Doctoral School of the Grażyna and Kiejstut Bacewicz Academy of Music in Łódź.
Gosia Zagajewska
Poet and vocalist. She has performed at numerous festivals, including: Krakowska Jesień Jazzowa, Warszawskie Sanatorium Dźwięku, Fortalicje, ECLAT Festival, Lodžie Worldfest, Inne Brzmienia, Ethniesy, Noc Kultury in Konin, and Spontaneous Music Festival. Tuleje, the ensemble she co-creates with double bassist Ksawery Wójciński and drummer Wojtek Kurek, is a new and intriguing project exploring the borderlands of traditional music, improvisation, and poetry, creating minimalist arrangements based on folk melodies from eastern Wielkopolska and contemporary texts. She has collaborated with Ksawery Wójciński on multiple occasions, including within his own series “Muzyczne DNA mojego domu. Trasa koncertowa do wewnątrz.”, and in a joint composition based on Fryderyk Chopin’s E minor prelude, entitled “28”. In 2022 she received a scholarship from the Marshal of Wielkopolska and led a series of her own vocal improvisation workshops entitled “Głosowanie”. She has published in “biBLioteka”, “KONTENT”, “Drobiazgi”, “Tlen Literacki”, “Strona Czynna”, and in the anthology “Głód” published by the Instytut Literatury. In November 2023, her debut poetry collection “Wyrobiska” was published by SPP Oddział w Łodzi.