1. NACHTSCHIMMEN AND THE WORK OF ZACHAR
LASKEWICZ
This website concerns primarily the work of the music-theatre
composer/performer Zachar Laskewicz and his organisation Nachtschimmen
('Night Shades'). The major role of Nachtschimmen is to promote the
role of the new music-theatre genre and other interdisciplinary art-forms which
question the regimentation of the European artistic world.
On the left the navigation buttons direct the participant to the main
activities of Laskewicz: his work as a composer, performer and
theoretician. A page is also devoted to a major composition project which
epitomises Laskewicz's work: the ZAUM project.
2. NACHTSCHIMMEN PRODUCTS AND SERVICES
The navigation bar above and to the left directs the participant to other
major activities organised thanks to the support of the Nachtschimmen
organisation, including major products and services such as the sale of CDs,
scores and books, translation, publication and music-theatre notation.
3. INTERCULTURALITY AND SALING ASAH
Another major page involved with Nachtschimmen is the performance
organisation Saling Asah which encourages collaboration between
Balinese and Belgian artists and represents a dynamic movement towards
intercultural communication in the contemporary arts. Laskewicz is the
founder and current director of this organisation which represents some of the
foundation conceptions behind Nachtschimmen.
4. ZACHAR LASKEWICZ'S WORK
This website contains the following major sections involved
specifically with Laskewicz's work:
(i) Complete list of the composer's
works;
(ii) Description of the composer's solo
performance and the requirements for performances;
(iii) Descriptions, essays and abstracts for theoretical
work written by Zachar Laskewicz;
-
-
![[New!]](images/smallnew.gif)
Nachtschimmen CD release
- SOFT RAINS - new music by Zachar Laskewicz
-
See the press release for more details,
including sound fragments.
-
the lights are dark
the hat is on the floor
he has already come down the stairs
now he's under the spotlight
he makes faces
his eyes move from side to side
like a puppet on a string
his hands are loose like in a
shadow play - like a marionette
the nonsense sentences, the hat,
the figure lying on the floor, motionless,
he seems to be no human at all . . .
my god - who is he?
black and white figure
-T. Laitakari, Helsinki (1996)
COMPOSER
PERFORMER
Language without meaning or
meaning without language?
Zachar Laskewicz:
Composer and performer of
experimental music-theatre,
theoretician and lecturer in the field of cultural studies, semiotics
and linguistics.
THEORETICIAN
LANGUAGE
SPECIALIST
Zachar Laskewicz was born in Western Australia in 1971. As a child he showed
great interest in theatre and music, and he has since received a Bachelor degree
in theatre and drama studies, a first license in experimental composition from
the Royal Conservatory of Ghent and a graduate diploma in language studies from
Edith Cowan University in Perth.
Zachar's primary area of interest is experimental music-theatre and multimedia
performance where the working tools of the composer include theatrical elements:
language, movement and staging. Concerts of his music-theatre compositions have
been presented in Australia, Russia, Belgium, Finland and Lithuania. He has
worked as a composer, director, performer, theoretician, translator, lecturer
and language teacher. He is currently preparing his doctoral dissertation on a
multi-medial semiotic approach to Balinese contemporary performance, and is in
this way working on making a connection between his practical work as a composer
and his theoretical work as a researcher. In addition to the above, he has a
translation and graphic design business involved with language, music and
theatre based in Brussels, Belgium called Nachtschimmen ('Night Shades').
Zachar is also the director of a Belgian foundation called SALING
ASAH V.Z.W. which encourages collaboration between Belgian and Balinese
performing arts. The intention of the group is firstly to educate a group of
Belgian performers to perform on the many different types of Balinese gamelan so
that their compositional/artistic vocabulary can be extended. The second purpose
is to create an education programme for Belgian schools and universities based
on Balinese contemporary performing arts.
This web sites includes information about all of these subjects, including
access to information about his compositional history, his solo-performance work
and a complete data-base of papers, articles and publications written on or
about Zachar's creative or theoretical work.
"The sign
is brought to life by human performance: we weave it so intricately into our
understanding of experience that we can sometimes only feel its presence.
Through my work as composer and also as theoretician I am attempting to get
closer to that elusive 'sign' by exploring its application in cultural systems.
I want to demonstrate that we dynamically create and recreate the reality around
us by performing it, and that this 'performance' should become a given
application in contemporary theory."
- Zachar Laskewicz, March 1998
Contact Information
Please feel free to contact Zachar Laskewicz at the following address for
further information concerning Laskewicz's work, the organisation/new
music-theatre group Nachtschimmen and the intercultural Balinese/Belgian
gamelan group Saling Asah.
- Telephone
- +32 (0)2 215 66 18
- FAX
- +32 (0)2 215 66 18 or +32
(0)3 776 61 63
- Cellular phone
- 0477 - 533 155
- Postal address
- Rogierlaan 283, 1030 Brussels, Belgium
- Electronic mail
- General Information: zlaskewicz@belgacom.net
Webmaster: zlaskewicz@belgacom.net
ACHAR LASKEWICZ
EDUCATION
1989 - 1993
Bachelor of Arts with honours: theater and drama studies
Murdoch University, Perth (Australia).
1993
First Licence in experimental music
Royal Conservatorium, Ghent (Belgium).
1994
Diploma: "German Elementary Knowledge"
Provinciaal Handels- en Taalinstituut, Ghent.
1995
Diploma: "Nederlands als Tweede Taal, Programma II"
(Dutch as a second language-reading, writing, listening and speaking)
State Exams, held in Amsterdam
1996
Graduate Diploma: language studies
Edith Cowan University, Perth.
WORK EXPERIENCE
1991
January 28
Lecture
on music-theatre:
Logos Foundation, Ghent.
August
Publication:
"Using Music as an Open Creative Resource"
New Music Articles (issue 9) 1991, pp 26-30
NMA Publications
1992
July 17
Paper presented at colloquium:
"Rethinking
language and text in terms of a musical aesthetic"
Colloquium on Australian, American and British poetry set to music
Edith Cowan University in Perth, Australia.
1993
January 26
Lecture on research: Contemporary Music Project
Royal Conservatorium, Ghent.
Head of publicity
and assistant direction at the contemporary music festival Ars Musica (Brussel).
Direction of music-theatre production ZAUM (own
composition)
Stekelbees Festival (Gent).
1994
Head of publicity
and assistant direction at the theatre festival
Kunsten Festival des Arts (Brussel).
Head of publicity
and assistant direction at the contemporary music festival Ars Musica (Brussel).
1995
June 10-16
Paper presented at congress:
"ZAUM:
words without meaning or meaning without words?
Towards a musical understanding of language."
International Summer Congresses for Structural and Semiotic Studies
Imatra, Finland.
December 9
Concert van eigen compositie: Project 2
Antwerpen, De Singel De Nacht van Radio 3, "Gamelan"
1996
June 9-16 Paper presented at seminar:
"Indexicality and Iconicity in Balinese Musical Texts"
5th International Seminar on Musical Semiotics
Imatra, Finland.
September 5-9 Paper presented at congress:
"Time and Space in Balinese Musical Texts"
International Semiotics Congress
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
June 9 Performance of solo music-theatre programme:
"TRANSENSE LANGUAGE: multimedia performance"
Karelia Hall, cultural centre
Imatra, Finland
October
Position at language institute as translator/teacher: Vickman L.T.S.
Contact address: Stationsstraat 26 - B 8, 1930 Zaventem Tel. 02/725 77 79
November 4-6
Lecture Series Presented in Finland:
Towards a Multimedial Approach to Musical Experience
November 4 "Music as Experience/Music as Text"
November 5 "Balinese Music as an Embedded Sign:Time, Space and
Multimediality
in Balinese Music Performances."
November 5 "Multimedial Musicality in Twentieth Century Avant-garde
Performance"
University of Helsinki, Finland
November 6
Solo performance of music-theatre programme:
"Musiiki-Pantomiimi-Teatteri"
University Drama Theater, Helsinki
November 14-16 Paper presented at congress:
"The
Balinese Musical Sign Embodied in Time and Space"
Fifth International Congress on Musical Signification
Bologna, Italy
December 8 Solo performance of music-theatre programme:
"ZAUM-1, Songs of Incantation, ZAUM-2"
Festival of Musical Action
Academic Drama Theater, Vilnius, Litouwen
1997
February Position at language institute as teacher: Fondation 9
Contact address: Louizalaan 412, 1050 Brussel Tel. 02 - 640 21 92
Position at language institute as translator: Nederlandse Academie
Contact adress: Liefdadigheidsstraat 39 Tel. 02 - 218 47 07
Paper presented at congress
"The
Organic Presence of the Sign in Balinese Performance Texts"
6th International Congress of the International Association for Semiotic
Studies
Guadalajara, Mexico
1998
5 December Solo
performance/Conducting
ZAUM (solo
version) – Songs of Incantation for 9 female voices
SKRÆ P
performance/stimmer/impros
Copenhagen,
Denmark
11 December Concert
and C.D. launch
Soft Rains –
New Music by Zachar Laskewicz
The Logos
Foundation, Ghent (Belgium)
1999
7 – 11 DecemberPerformance
at Conference
Homo Orthopedicus,
The Modernist Body
University of
Antwerp, Belgium
MEMBERSHIPS
Musical Signification Project
International Semiotics Institute
Imatra Cultural Centre
Virastokatu 1, 55100 Imatra
Finland
International Association for Semiotic Studies (IASS-IAS)
Institute for Socio-Semiotic Studies
Waltergasse 5/1/12, A-10-40 Vienna
Austria
Australian Music Centre (AMC)
Representation status
PO Box N690, Grosvenor Place NSW 2000
Australia
Australasian Performing Rights Association (APRA)
Writer Full Member
PO Box 567, Crows Nest NSW 2065
Australia
Referees
Prof. Saskia Kersenboom
Anthropological Linguistics
Department of Cultural Anthropology
University of Amsterdam
Oudezijds Achterburgwal 185
1012 DK Amsterdam
The Netherlands
Tel. +32 (0)20 525 2625
