makes performances emerging from the collaborative work of choreographer Maya M. Carroll and composer Roy Carroll. They create work that is unflinchingly sensual, characterised by an almost molecular tactility encountering fantastic viscerality. The Instrument works in close collaboration with a diverse circle of artists, taking an integrated approach that radiates outwards from a clear movement and sound aesthetic, permeating all aspects of the work, scenography, lighting design, graphic and visual art.

Maya and Roy have been working together since 2006, creating over 30 works for the stage. They formed The Instrument in 2011. They are Berlin based while devising and presenting work internationally.

Maya Matilda Carroll is a choreographer, dancer, mentor and teacher, based in Europe since 2004. For over twenty years she has been creating independent dance work and performance, collaborating with dancers, musicians, actors, poets and visual artists. Maya's work is centred on her embodiment of sound/music, the profound physicality and exploration of vocabulary in her pieces. Maya formed The Instrument (2011) with her life and artistic-work partner; composer / musician Roy Carroll. Their long-standing collaboration is a unique experience of detail and atmosphere within which Maya continues to expand her choreographic language. Through The Instrument Maya initiates and is involved in productions that range between independent projects and larger scale commissions. As a teacher, Maya leads master classes and workshops in Europe and abroad, extensively developing her teaching alongside her artistic work; drawn from and towards the human, social and poetic manifestation of the dancing body.

"I see my choreographic work as an embodied expression of primal - cultural longings; rooted in existence which craves creativity. The pieces become immersive micro-universes inside which is a space for listening, questioning and exposing human conditions. In the act of creating and performing I sense the languages of gesture, dance, light, sound/music and voice; emerging both naked and autonomous. It is a 'knowing innocence' which can be transformative in profound, subtle and revealing ways. A wide, both delicate and wild experience where I find myself dancing with elements that attract, concern and fascinate me. In a sense, each piece is a unique world, and the journey inside it is the experience I invite the audience to travel into".

Between 1997-2000 Maya danced in Muza dance company, Tel-Aviv, Israel. She collaborated with choreographer Lara Barsacq over five years (Tel-Aviv - Paris). Between 2000-2003 Maya danced in Batsheva Ensemble company, directed by Ohad Naharin. She also danced works choreographed by Anat Danieli, Sharon Eyal and Arkadi Zaides to name a few. In 2005 Maya joined Research Project with Sasha Waltz & Guests in Berlin. Since 2013 she collaborates with choreographer and director Julyen Hamilton. She has been part of his company Allen's Line and performed in the pieces; Goat Ocean, Mud Like Gold, The Light Beneath Reaches, BURST!, Thirst and The Eclipse of Reason.

Roy Carroll is an Irish musician and composer, based in Berlin. He works primarily with electroacoustic media; which encompasses transducers, synthesis, feedback, audio recordings, amplification, software, - auditory and psychoacoustic phenomena even. With these materials, Carroll instigates processes that ruthlessly investigate timbre, articulation, gesture, form and so on. His self-made devices and instruments span the entire timbral spectrum. Carroll's work takes the atomic particles of music making, traverses acoustic preparations and extended techniques; and collides with signal processing and amplification. Feedback, the horror of an instrument hearing itself, is a recurring component of Carroll's work, creating multi-layered forms that continually renegotiate the transformation of electrical audio signals into disturbed air. Collaborations include The Instrument, Paroxysm, The Monophonic Havel, Splitter Orchester, Voutchkova/Thieke/Carroll, Hamilton Carroll.

roycarroll.com

The Instrument composition classes offer a tactile and musing practice, articulating the body with time, space and the imagination. The classes engage with composition in real time, encouraging flow, precision and bodily wisdom as a pathway to dance making and performance. Involving attentiveness, musicality, collective and personal awareness; the work deepens a sense of presence, choice and vision, and highlights the interplay between movement and image. Joining these elements in the process of dance making, the practice takes its fascination in relationships between human beings, environments and choreographic narratives.

In workshops, we extend these elements and deepen the study within three main themes:

Embodying Musicality - which places a focus on the relationship between rhythm, sound and harmony and the moving / dancing body. (more information)

Transfiguring Space- in which we study space through the kinesthetic and conscious abilities of the moving body and mind, as an integrated subject in choreography and performance. (more information)

Dance Composition and Aliveness -in which we investigate the depth of our (theatrical) presence, attentiveness and hunger for imagination as performance makers. (more information)

Maya leads classes / workshops in Berlin and internationally on a regular basis. In the past fourteen years Maya has been a guest teacher at HZT University (Berlin), Staatstheater Kassel (Johannes Wieland), Theater Greifswald (Jan Pusch), Impulstanz (Vienna), Fabrik Potsdam, Carte Blanche (Bergen), CND Lyon, CNSMD Lyon, CCNR Rillieux (Cie Yuval Pick), Le Pacifique / CDC (Grenoble), Kelim Choreography Center (Israel) and SEAD Academy (Salzburg) to name a few.

Roy and Maya also conduct workshops together, in which they engage their collaborative experience within a process of group learning and dancing with live sound / music.