Soul Wings
Seelenflügel
Performances took place in 2016/2017 in Bern, Biel, Schaffhausen and on Schweibenalp ( Brienz).
Shape-breaking form
In our program, arias from classical literature by Elischewa Dreyfus are sung with her soulful voice.
Sporadically she lets her voice flow into improvisations.
The accomplished pianist Stephanie Senn accompanies them both in the usual way (ie according to the score) and freely improvising, moving within the set harmonies.
The interplay between form and breaking out of it ultimately leads to free improvisation by the pianist, which opens doors to unimagined worlds of sound for the listener.
With her dance in “Instant Choreography”, Carola Stieber makes what is heard in the room and in the music visible. She weaves a connection between thoughts, feelings, body awareness and the quiet spirit of meditation and prayer.
The qualified stage dancer manages the balancing act from west to east in her own dance form "Devadasi - dance of the heart", in which both elements of ballet and the rotating dance (known from Sufism) are integrated.
The three artists have a common special ability: to touch people deeply and to make moments of encounter with the truly invigorating essence accessible to the audience.
This ability has already taken her to various places around the world.
Female artists
Elischewa Dreyfus soprano
Stephanie Senn piano
Carola Stieber Devadasi - Dance of the Heart
Acute and topical
We live in a time when cultures, or rather people from different countries and religions, are fighting each other. Many people are forced by war and hardship to flee their homeland and then must live together in cramped conditions in foreign countries. Against this background, intercultural and interreligious or interspiritual peace work seems to us to be one of the most urgent tasks.
The Soul Wings project builds bridges between cultures, religions and people:
Literature from the Christian Western tradition is sung by a soprano with Jewish, (Eastern) German, Swiss and Christian backgrounds.
The certified stage dancer, coming from modern dance, carries the school of classical ballet in her vocabulary. Her own movement language is also strongly coloured by life in different countries and the rituals in different religions.
The whirling dance is a universal element that connects all people. It is mainly known from Sufism (mystical Islamic religion). But in fact it can be found all over the world. Every child knows about the magic that lies in it. What we may experience in Soul Wings is a unique expression of the whirling dance, in which the pelvis, upper body and head move, sometimes policentrically, spirally and circularly.
Different movements circle around the one centre!
The piano is the classical western accompanying instrument for vocal literature and ballet. In our project, it also supports and inspires the spinning dance. It has innumerable possibilities, opens unimagined dimensions, and creates whole worlds of sound. The piano can be seen as a metaphor for people living today. He, too, can connect in many ways, thereby gaining vocabulary: Tone colours, harmonies and rhythms enrich his world.
He can learn new things without losing his identity and his roots.
For our project, we see a city like Biel with its numerous cultural influences as exactly the right place.
We meet the demands of our time with a contribution of very essential pioneering work.
Music and dance enable so much more connection, freedom and unity in a seemingly simple, direct and deeply touching way than the limitations of our language, language boundaries or social norms and ideas allow.
Vita Stephanie Senn
Stephanie Senn lives in Schaffhausen, where she was born in 1973. After graduating from secondary school, she obtained a piano teacher diploma from Karl-Andreas Kolly at the Winterthur Conservatory and completed her organ training with Peter Leu in Schaffhausen with a certificate of proficiency.
After completing a postgraduate degree in music education at the Musikhochschule Winterthur, she began studying School Music I at the Zurich University of the Arts from 2006, which she completed in 2008. Stephanie Senn gained a total of seven years of experience at senior level, led her own choir for a year, until son Jophiel was born in 2012. Stephanie Senn is an experienced piano teacher and teaches at the Wallisellen Music School and the SMPV Music School in Schaffhausen. She also plays the organ in various parishes, has her own band, accompanies theater sports events and likes to get together with other musicians for performances of all kinds.
She went her own way early on. She says: «The music flows incessantly
through me. " As a highly talented improviser with a broad spectrum of musical expression, the pianist Stephanie Senn takes you on a multi-faceted soul journey at her concerts.
Stephanie Senn (Schaffhausen) trusts her inspiration on the piano. Each of their concerts is unique. Without knowing what is emerging, she begins to play. In improvisation, the pianist intuitively combines jazz harmonies, rock rhythms, classical and foreign elements and has already won several classical music competitions.
Vita Carola Stieber, Paramjyoti
Born 1.8.1973
Place of birth: Tiengen on the Upper Rhine in southern Germany
1993 Abitur
1998 Diploma stage dancer, AHK-Amsterdam, major in modern dance, Netherlands
2000 Graduation Berkely Psychic Institute, California, USA
2002 Foundation of "Dance of the Heart"
2002-2017 Performances and workshops worldwide: Germany, Austria, France, Italy, Portugal, England, Switzerland, India, Israel, Palestine, Turkey, Iran, USA, Thailand, Australia
2014-2017 Own film production, www.movingintotheinfinite.com
Param Jyoti, Garita Carola Stieber is a qualified stage dancer. In February 2002 she was given the seed for the dance of the heart. Since then she has shared this continuous discovery with other people.
She lived lived in India for many years. Now she is following invitations around the world to share love and truth with friends. Building bridges between different cultures, spiritual movements, human hearts and between humans and their origins is a deep concern for her.
