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From the Scene: Christian Zemp on gut feelings, decisions and their consequences

Christian Zemp02-23-20269 min. read

In the "From the Scene" format, musicians from the Moods universe share their stories. In the current edition, Christian Zemp from Sc'ööf discusses the most significant decisions he has made.

As I write this blog post, there is a lot of snow outside. My darling four-month-old daughter is sleeping in her pushchair in the garden. Wrapped up warm in her pushchair, she's having a long afternoon nap after we explored the sounds of the human voice together, rolling from supine to prone in a permanently grinning state. The tools that I have just returned, which are lent to each other here in my neighbourhood on the outskirts of Copenhagen with the same cordiality as an open ear, a helping hand, or the soy sauce that is missing for dinner, have enabled me to insulate the floor of my studio house and build the scenography for my Plexiglas performance project Kontrollør in my workshop. I am currently pondering the design of the next stage of my transdisciplinary, somatic solo performance, which will premiere at a festival in Copenhagen next autumn. Current working title: How to Utopia – A Requiem for Our Habits.My basic feeling is one of happiness, warmth and contentment. However, as I witness the painful consequences of failing capitalism, increasing polarisation and patriarchal, power-obsessed structures from all over the world, this basic feeling coexists peacefully with excessive demands, exhaustion, anger, the will to change, the belief in togetherness and utopias, and curiosity and joy.And on the occasion of this blog, I ask myself:How exactly did I end up here?I'm probably not the only person who sometimes finds it hard to make decisions. 'Have there not been moments in your life when you've made important decisions and followed a strong inner urge, trusting your instincts?' I was recently asked. It was Yann Coppier who asked. In response to his request, I would like to share with you some of my experiences as an artist and as a person, and talk about a few of these decision-making moments.After graduating from high school, I had a strong sense of curiosity and was bored with the familiarity of Switzerland and the culture in which I grew up. This was coupled with an insatiable desire for something different. My romantic longing for a simple life close to nature, and my desire to discover my roots in a different environment — probably dating back many generations to Entlebuch farming families — drove me to Mongolia. At the age of 19, I boarded the train alone, packed with a rucksack and a guitar, and arrived seven days later. Needless to say, spending two months in seemingly endless steppe grasslands, relying on genuine curiosity and connection above all else (my language skills were barely up to the level of a two-year-old), left a lasting impression on me. The overtone singing with which I almost always put my daughter to sleep in her first weeks of life has recently reappeared as a small, deeply ingrained side effect.Later, after a year of preliminary studies at jazz school, I decided to study medicine. Still in my first year, I was feeling increasingly uncomfortable with streamlined problem-solving thinking when I discovered Feldenkrais group lessons at Unisport in Bern. Realising that I could train in this fascinating method, which opened up so much unexpected space for discovery, thought and action, was the basis for my next big decision. I enrolled on the four-year Feldenkrais course, and shortly afterwards I decided to study guitar in Lucerne at the same time. My experience as an improvising musician enriches my Feldenkrais practice in many ways, and the years of training and development in the Feldenkrais Method provide the most important foundation for my artistic practice, where the two areas increasingly converge.I spent ten years in Lucerne. I was in the bands Sc'ööf and Tanche, and I was in the collective Club Denmark. I built rehearsal rooms myself and organised events. I was driven by the need to work with continuity, to build something with the people around me and to make things happen on a small scale. It wasn't ambition to change anything that made me decide to do a postgraduate course at the Rhythmic Music Conservatory in Copenhagen almost three years ago. It was a desire for change and different experiences that could no longer be ignored. To oppose comfort and habits. I wanted to discover more outside my comfort zone and rediscover myself in a new environment. Then there's the mirror image thing... When you live in the same place for a long time, other people form an image of you and reflect it back. I have often perceived this dynamic as conservative. The expectation to stay the same and the belief that we know each other inhibits the possibility of change and can even stifle it. I felt a strong urge to explore new paths as an independent artist, outside the context of the band and collective. I wanted to integrate my diverse interests into my artistic expression. I also needed a framework in which change, research and searching were welcome.Although the length of my stay in Copenhagen was not yet definite at the beginning, I quickly started to feel liberated. Here, too, people naturally form an impression of me. For now, though, this is the most up-to-date picture I have. I enjoyed discovering the autonomy and freedom it offered me: I can also choose what defines me. When strangers ask you who you are and what you do, it's an opportunity to answer differently each time, depending on what feels appropriate. Should I define myself by my past, my previous education or my previous projects, or by my current interests, views and ambitions for the future?The two-year Advanced Postgraduate Diploma in 'Artistic Research' at RMC provided the perfect framework for me to delve deeply into my project with minimal external interference (yes, in Denmark, students essentially have a basic income). My main motivation was to explore a new format for my artistic output, combining my discoveries, principles, and experiences from the Feldenkrais Method with my musical background and affinity for multimedia technologies."Given your body awareness, experience of movement sequences and understanding of the Feldenkrais method, I would also describe you as a dancer", said Gabriele a former dancer at the Lucerne Theatre who is now at the NDT in The Hague. She came to me during a joint project. Bam! There it was: an outsider's view that showed me my blinkers, my category thinking and my inner brakes. I'm still grateful to him for that today.Thinking about myself and my project outside of genre categories has helped me take my research into movement and dance as seriously as my work with music and the guitar. I now pay as much attention to working with a movement sensor as I do to researching meta-themes and context. I take every little, absurd idea seriously and pursue it further, going down a rabbit hole before discarding it. I look for the resources to keep digging and find myself somewhere unexpected weeks later. Above all, don't try to hatch these ideas by yourself; share the process with peers and experts right from the start. Seek dialogue with references, critical questions and valuable reflections from outside sources. These are values practised at the RMC that have had a lasting impact on my work. A community has grown from fellow students, friends, and some of my self-chosen coaches, who have remained collaboration partners even after graduation. For example, the generous and brilliant musician, programmer and researcher Rodrigo Constanzo still gives me reliable, personalised advice on the nerdiest questions about Max Patches and promotes his YouTube series play-talk-play to Porto. Similarly, the kind-hearted and highly experienced dancer and choreographer Kitt Johnson continues to provide individual Feldenkrais lessons and project coaching.
I feel fortunate that I have been able to expand my practice into areas that I find urgent, relevant and joyful. Two years after setting off into the unknown, and after making many unexpected discoveries, I found myself pleasantly far from where I started. My final performance, 'How to Decentralise Your Brain in 527 Simple Steps', has evolved into a one-hour collection of five solo pieces – ranging from an Intro for feet with live voice processing using an Xbox controller, to a spatial audio motion sensor piece involving black balloons, touch and body awareness (THE.LESS.YOU.GRAB.THE.MORE.YOU.FEEL) to a feedback shadow typewriter performance (GHOST.WRITER), a piece for an interactively programmed light organ and electric guitar (ME.NOT.ME), and a concluding fog light tunnel motion sensor sound and scent performance (IN.SIDE.OUT.SIDE.IN).
I am also grateful that my ongoing collaboration with the band Sc'ööf has accompanied me through this period of new discoveries. We have been composing collectively for over 10 years, developing ideas, discarding them and reusing them. We have endured uncertainties and friction, done justice to individual artistic languages, reconciled improvisation with strict structures and created an infectious connection with the audience through collective energy. Not to mention the logistics of being able to meet as a band and rehearse together. It's actually an anti-capitalist statement in and of itself.
My latest big decision was to have the baby who is now laughing at me. When we were considering things together, I had some familiar concerns: as an artist, would I be able to provide my child with enough economic stability? How can I balance my demands on myself as a father who wants to be there for his child with my life as an artist? In other words: Would I have to lower my standards as an artist if I had a child? Would I become boring? Would a family life automatically draw me into patriarchal structures?Fortunately, my gut feeling has prevailed here too. Along with this feeling comes the determination and confidence that my partner and I have to actively tackle these challenges and create a space in which our values, dreams and hopes can flourish.Love can do so much.Finally, I would like to recommend four episodes of Sternstunde Philosophie. I found them very thought-provoking and inspiring.Thank you, SRF! Please vote no to the SRG initiative on 8 March. Thank you!Care instead of capital (Jule Govrin) - or for Danish speakers: the book "Underskud" by Emma Holten
Art or politics: What will save the world? (Sibylle Berg)
How can sustainable manhood succeed? (Markus Theunert, Thobias Haber)
Paul Lynch - Writing in dark times (Paul Lynch)

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