Rif's Open Studio = unique opportunity to discover a work-in-progress by our residents in an informal setting. Admission is free and there is no need to book.

Welcome to the participatory open studio of the new musical theatre performance by Brussels-based YouYou Group

For the Brussels YouYou Group isn't the voice just an ‘instrument’. They use the voice as a way to move through spaces, bodies and landscapes via sound. During this Open Studio the public is actively involved in the exchange of experiences and knowledge.

After a decade of acclaimed vocal performances for large groups, four singers from the core of the YouYou Group bring their most musical creation back to life. Or not quite: Threshold Songs explores the borderland between sound and song. When does a sound become a song? How do we experience it when it lingers somewhere between noise and tone, between cry and cantata, between bleat and ballad, between everyday object and instrument, between stone and melody?

In the imagined world of the YouYou Group, we return to a time ‘before music’, where nearly-songs emerge. These are places that challenge our perceptions and pique our curiosity about what all can begin to ‘sing’.

The YouYou Group is named after a typical vocal technique: a trill that expresses joy and sometimes sadness. The group works in Brussels around the voice in all its forms, as an art community of 40 members. Their practice brings together avant-garde, bodywork and heritage, with a focus on the power of the collective sounding body.