Closed Eyes Festival

Tactile art exhibition | by blind artists based in Tilburg and Jofke®

Lights out photography exhibition | Evy Raes

Smeso music and scent adventure | Xavier Geerman

Hear me dance and music performance | Vicky Angelidou & Xavier Geerman

Eyes closed with chair and radio dance performance | Thalia Laric

Blind Constant Movement dance/movement workshop | Vicky Angelidou

Soundfullness Soundhealing music workshop | Anja Driessens

Tones of Touch movement/dance workshop | Thalia Laric

Circle singing* singing workshop | Nandy Mannaert

Blind Walk dance/movement workshop | Mami Izumi

Color and Clothing for blind personal advice| Sandra Bolten

Korean tastings taste experience

Practical Information

Date & Time: Saturday 7 July 2019, 11:00 - 20:00

Location: Culture BSO Monopole Langestraat 13, 5038 SB Tilburg

Entrance: 15E at the entrance | presale 13,30E at Eventbrite.nl

Language: Dutch & English

Venue: Kinderstad CulTuur BSO Monopole, Langestraat 13, Tilburg

W: closedeyesfestival.com F: closedeyesfestival/ E. [email protected]

Concept.

The Closed Eyes Festival is an initiative by Greek choreographer Vicky Angelidou, Aruban composer Xavier Geerman, and Dutch artist Jofke van Loon. We joined forces to organize a one-day festival on the 7th of July 2019, together with the Kinderstad Foundation aimed at blind and non-blind audiences living in Tilburg and beyond. Such a festival is an original idea that has not been realized for the time being by another organization. We believe that through its process of realization we will create the conditions for personal and collective growth towards the understanding of visual impairment.

Our guiding principle is to try to make a difference though an engaging creative program, promoting inclusion, togetherness and accessible cultural activities for everyone. To achieve this, we partner with blind and non-blind advisors, artists and consultants with long experience in developing inclusive cultural activities for the specific target group. The artistic program includes workshops, performances, installations, visual art exhibitions and parallel activities for children and adults.

Participating artists through their projects encourage us to question our lack of sight and see blindness as a potential to explore and empower all of the other senses, rather than a limitation. The Closed Eyes Festival combines different art forms arts creating a context within which audiences are encouraged to explore their creativity through arts, find new ways of expressing themselves, interact with each other and familiarize with art forms that they may not have experienced before.

The festival is intentionally open to the local community, to families living in the Brabant region, to students attending schools in the area, as well as adults, aiming to raise awareness of the importance of initiatives that bring together people with and without disabilities.

All activities are designed to welcome people who benefit from a more relaxed environment. Audience members are able to leave and re-enter all activities throughout the day of the festival and there are no restrictions around movement in the space.

Kinderstad Tilburg Kinderstad is a professional childcare organization for children from 0 to 13 years old. It has nurseries, kindergarten and out-of-school care has branches in different areas around Tilburg. Children from 0 to 4 years old play and discover at our day care centres. And after school, children meet their friends and neighbours at our out-of-school care facilities.

Our team

Vicky Aggelidou | Choreographer

Vicky Angelidou (GR) is a dancer, choreographer and dance educator, based in between Netherlands and Greece, promoting with a full heart the love for learning and creating through movement. She holds a Bachelor’s degrees in Psychology and Dance and she holds an MA in "Performing Public Space". She is researching movement and performance that is connected with social issues and that happens in unconventional places. She teaches contemporary dance technique and improvisation in several dance schools and studios and she educates dancers through intensive workshops.

Through an artistic research she created the interactive performance Move the Public Space (2017-18) that was presented in public spaces in Greece, Belgium and Netherlands. She co-created the performance Hear me to See you with the composer Xavier Geerman that was presented in Mariengaarde and Ateliers (Tilburg, 2018). She choreographed Crush (2017) that was presented in Die Wolke Theater (Thessaloniki), 2nd Diko mou Festival Xorou and in PK Theater (Athens), the performance Flex (2016) that was presented in 1st Diko mou Festival Xorou, in 15th Hellenic Festival of Choreographers and in the Kefallinias Theater (Athens), the video dance SKOURIES (2015) presented in 5th Athens Video Dance Project (Athens) and Dimitria Festival (Thessaloniki).

She danced a Passing Through improvisation together with 34 dancers in the Contemporary Theater (Athens, 2015) and together with 69 dancers in the Municipality Theater of Corfu (2018). She collaborated with 7 dancers creating a residency in Bratislava and dancing a Passing through improvisation 11 ways to make soup (Studio 12, Bratislava, Slovakia, 2018). She choreographed the Video Dance Chromosoma (8th Athens Video Dance Project, 2019) collaborating with Sonia Kehagia.

She keeps on training herself mainly in the Passing Through and Flying Low technique with David Zambrano, and she attended the EXIN one month intensive in Corfu, Greece and the PTO one month intensive in Catania, Italy. She is also influenced by the work of Depth Movement (Edivaldo Ernesto), by Gaga (Ohad Naharin), and several other compositional practices that through the years shaped her way of moving and thinking.

Xavier Geerman | Musician

Xavier is composer, multi-instrumentalist, piano technician, originally from Aruba, now based in Tilburg, seizing every opportunity to develop as a human being, musician and composer, recently nominated with the Jacques de Leeuw Prize.

He combines his great passion for composing with the passion for his own country. In this way, tradition and innovation go hand in hand. Tradition expresses itself in the choice of melodies and rhythms of folk songs to the choice of traditional instruments, often percussion and instruments from the guitar family.

Recently his work “Ashes to Ashes” premiered at Concertgebouw Amsterdam. In the context of the Opera Forward Festival, Xavier and Loes Reiling wrote the mini-opera 'Het Spel', which premiered in the National Opera. He collaborated with students from other art institutes in the Netherlands. His interdisciplinary production premiered at Theater De Kring Roosendaal.

Xavier created XG-Music, a company that provides composition for artists, orchestra and films as a way to represent Aruba through his music compositions and explaining it to people through music theory. He sees that the Aruban music scene is not fully developed and needs to be updated to compete with what is currently happening around the international modern music scene.

While working on this contribution he will be innovating Aruban music and presenting it to the world, so that it can showcase and let people know more about Aruban music.

Jofke van Loon | Artist &

Jofke van Loon graduated from the Academy for Visual Arts in Tilburg (1999) and since then she gives drawing and painting lessons as an entrepreneur. She has a lot of practical experience and followed masterclasses over the years to keep abreast of developments. In 2008 Jofke decided to continue her vocation full-time as an artist and inspirator by the name Studio Xplo.

Visio, then called Sensis, asked her to give painting lessons to their clients with a visual impairment in 2008 and 2009. The experiences they gained together were so impressive that Jofke mobilized fellow artists and people with visual impairments at the end of 2009 to start Zie je wel(?); the project for non-visual art experience. Together they explored sensory perception to share their outcomes with others through exhibitions, interactive presentations and workshops.

In 2011, Jofke founded the KIVI Foundation, which stands for 'Kunst Is Voor Iedereen' (Art Is For Everybody). She mobilized a board, even more fellow artists and volunteers to make art participation possible for anyone who experiences thresholds. For those who want to look broader during his search for artistic education and communication, in 2012 Jofke wrote her book 'Je zintuigen als inspiratie' (Your senses as an inspiration). She bundled her experiences including inspiring assignments and artist stories. This, together with recognizable examples from practice and her fluent writing style, make this book a valuable reading experience for everyone.

At the end of 2013 she started the development of the Taktila method™ for people with visual impairment. Meanwhile, it has resulted in a completely tangible color system, extensive learning box and accompanying educational resources. With this system insight into the colorful visual world is gained.