Dennis Báthory-Kitsz | USA

Dennis Báthory-Kitsz was born in 1949 and is a composer, author, editor, teacher, and technologist. He is engaged in the advancement of arts and technology from both a humanist and experimental perspective. Dennis has composed music for vaudeville shows, orchestras, sound sculptures, soloists, tape & electronics, dancers, multimedia environments, and performance events. He has finally decided to make his income via music and audio, while he has directed the Dashuki Music Theatre (Plasm over ocean and Stoneworld/Grey) and Il Gruppo Nuke Jitters (Echo), runs the awkwardly eclectic arts coop Malted/Media, and has composed for real-people squawkers such as orchestras, chamber ensembles and soloists -- some of whom have actually played his music.

His “Detritus of Mating”, an electroacoustic soundscape, is 27 years long. He has recently completed iskajtbrz for electronic sounds; Spammung for voice and electronics; LiquidBirds for 3 theremins, 3 voices, and video; Northsea Balletic Spicebush for solo string bass; Genial Music for strings, piccolo, and glockenspiel; and several of his continuing Glossolalia studies. He lives in Northfield, Vermont. His music is published by Westleaf Edition.

http://maltedmedia.com/people/bathory/

Stevie Balch | EUA

Stevie Balch (USA 1950) is a mother, midwife, nurse, author, and editor. She has attended the births of hundreds of babies since the early 1970s as one of Vermont's pioneering midwives, bringing both new and ancient concepts to birth practice, enhanced by the ideas of Michel Odent, Cornelia Enning, and many others. Her attention toward disappearing traditions in her home country brought her to the notion that birth song, lost in the medicalization of U.S. practice, might still flourish elsewhere.

Project: „Birth Song: Cross-Cultural Exploration of an Old Birth Art"
Category: Electroacoustic Composition, Phonography, Photography
Period: April 2007
Event: Arts Residency

„Birth Song” is an ongoing collaborative project of Dennis-Bathory-Kitsz and Barbara S. J. Balch. Song is a tradition that surrounds birthing women in every culture. The purpose of this project is to hear, record, transcribe, explore, study, analyse and catalog birth song and mothering songs in different cultures, and to hear commonalities, discover differences, and correlate song with other birth support traditions, birth ease, and mother/infant attachment.

The project begins with a residency at Nodar and continues through Europe, North America and South America, with the results published in ‘The Birth Songbook’, together with recordings, photographs, and a series of sound portraits and electroacoustic compositions, performance and radiophonic pieces.

Mothers will be observed and interviewed, and their songs heard, recorded and transcribed. This project will form a rising / falling curve, beginning with setting the scene and making cultural comparisons. At the top of the curve is birth song itself, with interpretive examples. And at the far end is taking what is known and applying it to birthing practices in postmodern cultures.

Photos from Nodar region women by Dennis Báthory-Kitsz and Stevie Balch