música do círculo
música do círculo (MdC) is both a brazilian-founded community and a practice of collaborative improvised music-making that fosters human connection and development, without the use of any instruments, for people of all levels of musical experience (including no experience at all!). it works by integrating 8 major elements, being them: improvisation, games, non-verbal communication, the circle, body music, contact, movement and flow.
When you dream about the world you want to live in, what music is there?
For us, it's music born from the encounter between people, created in the present moment, with bodies and voices connected as instruments.
We believe this music can emerge from any circle where people are willing to open themselves to connection: holding hands, looking into each other's eyes, smiling at each other...
Perhaps then, more than a place, the world can be a state of being together, where music is not only what sounds outwardly, but also what resonates within each one of us and all of us at the same time; where the Music of each circle, with its imperfections, diversity, and dreams, can already be experienced and shared!
The adventure of Música do Círculo is to discover and foster in different groups the music of relationships, the music of affection, the music that values individuality as a power to live community, the music that is sound and silence, that is listening and dialogue.
The Música do Círculo practice aims to provide people with the experience of being part of a creative musical community that shares values such as diversity, cooperation, lightness, fun, authenticity and expression and contributes to building a world inspired by these values.
This international community includes people from all over the world and grows every day from projects such as the Música do Círculo Brasil Retreat, Fritura Livre, Leading MdC courses, and other actions.
More and more we realize that this dream is not only ours, and with each new encounter, this music intensifies, echoing and reverberating both in more experienced circles and in those forming for the first time.
Whatever your case is, if it resonates with you we invite you to add your voice and rhythm to this adventure!
if possible, i highly recommend you join one session to experience its magic before watching it/researching too much about it. they happen once a month completely for free in a public park in são paulo (brazil), and in some other cities too, or also in some workshops, retreats or trainings they host across europe and north/latin america. check their socials to know of a circle near you. there are definitely practitioners scattered around the globe too, so ask me if you're interested and don't find anything.
if joining an in-person session is not possible right now, that's okay. learning a bit of the theory first might be fun too!
just know that in my experience, the experience of being a participant - surrendered and in dialogue with the whole group, having to show up as your full self, alongside all of the defenses, limitations, powers and potentialities that this practice can bring up - can't compare with reading or watching a few videos online. :)
plus, what's unique about this practice compared with other vocal improvisation, group singing or body music practices, is the aspect of not knowing what to expect. not just because you "don't know how this practice works", but because the structure of each session itself is completely improvised, and therefore, unique. so we never know where this unique mix of presence, music, play, movement, ritual, connection and expression will unfold.
if you're curious to see/hear a little bit anyway, here are a few excerpts shared on social media that i liked: https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/18017605172249078/
for a cool, experimental digital introduction to the practice, see gui david's MdC visualization experiment.
for a deeper breakdown and a little bit of the "meta" perspective, keep reading:
the facilitators (also called conductors) propose several games throughout the practice exploring these different elements in different ways each time, while also encouraging and creating a safe space for the creative expression, experimentation and proposition by the group itself.
it's created by 3 brazilian artists-educators-facilitators who later on founded an institute by the same name, inspired by 3 major references: barbatuques (fernando barba/stênio mendes' body percussion/improvisation games), bobby mcferrin/rhiannon (circlesongs, vocal improvisation) and the cooperation pedagogy.
as a practice, it's able to create an educational, therapeutic and artistic space at the same time. its structure and games provide supportive contexts for the creative/artistic expression of the group, promotes cooperation principles, deep listening and decolonial modes of relating, and through a radical embrace and harmonious arrangement of co-existing levels of consciousness, it inspires us to think about how to create this quality of field in other spaces as well.
it's a crazy psycho-spiritual, physical, musical and relational practice that i discovered in june 2023 and since then i've been to a retreat (7 days doing this 6h+ a day), done 50+ sessions with a smaller group in são paulo and started the 2-year-long leading training on august 2024.
the field of deep listening it creates help us very quickly tap into the collective intelligence of the group, facilitating the emergence of whatever is alive in each of us and connecting us with deeper layers of our musical intelligence and self-expression. the barrier for entry is super low, you really don't have to "be an artist", "know how to sing", or any of that. you just need to be willing to play.
the founders are also deep thinkers - informed by references such as charles eisenstein's work, decolonial theory and practices, and cooperation pedagogy - and very inclusive artists, always exploring fun and unconventional ways of learning/creating together.
the sessions are usually 1h30-long, and although there's some content posted online the experience of watching them (or even understanding what the practice is, as i just described) vs participating is completely different.
if like me, you were new to body music while being introduced to this, here's a small playlist with just a few songs that i love, that might get you started on this rabbit hole as well.
you can also read some of my loose reflections on my 1st música do círculo leading training immersion if you want to learn more.
+ they also have a really cool card deck which condenses the methodology, breaking it down into 8 games, 8 elements and 8 spatial formations (that people go deeper into during the 2-year-long leading training):
related: thoughts on metamodern music, body music, vocal improvisation, beatbox...
mdc is a post-tragic practice, in the sense of creating space for owning our traumas - recognizing the first and second shocks of existence and ritualizing - practicing actively going beyond states of being stuck in pre-tragic and tragic, into post-tragic awareness.
it's also a relational practice - being aware of our conscious and unconscious selves and the unfolding of our patterns, actions and ways of being - how they live in us and how what we share inflict upon/affect others.
as a practice, it seems to have a particular quality reminiscing sense of lost innocence but reclaimed playfulness. we can allow our inner (and literal) children to just play freely within it, knowing they're seen, respected and supported in this space, cultivating a way of interbeing typical of post-collapse, based on community trust, vulnerability and self-expression that isn't flat, that holds accountability built into it...