What does it mean to sing with our whole body?
We found some answers in this workshop series!
ABOUT
Sense It! is a project designed by composer and voice coach Ritika Ganguly + puppeteer and sand-drawing artist Sofia Padilla. It explores playful movement with the voice and body, integrating physical gestures with vocalization. We view the body and voice as a single, integrated instrument pulsating with other bodies and voices in our every day.
Through vibrational humming, sand-drawing, and dance, our gatherings begin by turning our focus inwards, then out to our fingernails, and then externalize to witness each other in the natural resonant frequency of the room.
The project flows from the idea that there are multiple ways to experience space singing back to us.
GATHERINGS
Indigenous Roots
“Wait, we can move in and out of our own drawings?!”
Mississippi River (Hidden Falls Regional Park)
“When we were using rakes to draw in the sand, I felt a lot of protection energy"
“I felt this choreography almost…of stepping in to protect and stepping out to rest while others are carrying the hum forward…”
The Acorn
“I feel soothed, as if I’m surfacing from a spa for my vocal chords”
Second Shift Studio Space
“I have been doing Butoh, and this practice feels a bit like that in tuning in to our own kindred self, but also an identification with everyone in the room”
Pillsbury House Theater
(Special Education Group)
“I have never heard her so vocal.”
(Special Education Group mentor, on observing a non-verbal participant)
Pillsbury House Theater
(Toddlers & Pre-schoolers)
“I hope these kids will remember that they hummed in harmony and painted with light at age 2!"
Semilla Center for the Arts & Healing Justice
“That was sort of like praying… I felt it through my whole body…”
IMAGE GALLERY
THE ARTISTS
Sofía Padilla is an acclaimed Mexican theater artist, director, designer, and puppeteer with over 50 national and international productions. Her puppet company, Paradox Teatro, is the recipient of multiple Jim Henson Foundation grants and the UNIMA’s Jim Henson Award for Innovation. Sofía teaches puppetry at Macalester College, co-directs the Semilla Center for Healing and the Arts, and nurtures the next generation of puppet artists as Co-Director of Puppet Lab at Open Eye Theatre.
Sofía’s work is a constant search to find her truth, interweaving deeply personal inspirations with relevant social justice themes. Her mission is to use performing arts—including live sand drawings and puppets—as a bridge to connect communities across language barriers and cultures.
Ritika Ganguly is a St. Paul-based composer, anthropologist, and voice coach born and raised in New Delhi, India. Her artistic practice engages with orally transmitted genres of music, poetry, and narration. She trains in the field with Bengali folk musicians on what it means to develop aural skills in community. Ritika is a 2021 McKnight Composer Fellow, and her artmaking has been generously awarded and supported by the Minnesota Opera, McKnight Foundation, Jerome Foundation, University of Minnesota, MSAB, and MRAC, among others. Ritika has led voice workshop sessions in breath, vibration, and group resonance work in Oaxaca (Mexico), Santa Fe (New Mexico), New Delhi (India), and here in the Twin Cities. She is motivated to engage non-singers in mutually affirming activities that promote healing through collective musical and vocal expression. She loves connecting with people over a cup of loose, long-leaf laal cha (red tea)!
CONTACT
Looking to get in touch? Fill out the form below and we'll get back to you!