Okx! comes from the meeting of the contemporary dancer Miguel Ortega and the sax player Sébastien Branche. Their common ground is improvisation, and being interested in one another’s work, and willing to enlarge their language, they decided to start working together.
Sharing their experience, the two artists come on stage as performers, both of them using sound and movement, and looking for articulations between those. But theree are other articulations they wnat to put into play : between their two bodies and the saxophone, between them and their environment, between reality and imagination. Within those articulations, the movement can take place, as a place for communication and possibilities. The duet, or one could say the trio since the saxophone is part of it in its own place, will make you think of a mythical three-headed beast, or a four-legged monster. Other images can arise through playing with the directions of the bodies, of the arm and legs, of the sound (the soprano saxophone is very directional), thus shaping sculptures, both in space or sound.
Other directions come into play in Okx!‘s performances through the choices of the actions, through digging into a pool of movements and situations that form a very distinct language which has formed and transforms through practice and performing.
| —————-3 videos from one of our performances—————-
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Born in September 2003, at the Cité Internationale Universitaire de Paris (CIUP), the five member collective includes performers with a wide array of personalities and from various origins (self-taught musicians, people coming from conservatoires, university, jazz schools, etc…).
This freely-improvised-music collective is a gathering place, keeping a distinct and singular sound as the musicians go on with their personal artistic journey. It is also a meeting place, open to other musicians of course, but also to artists from different fields, such as dance, painting, visual art, poetry, Slam, gastronomy, and so on.
Its last members were Sébastien Branche (saxophones), Cyprien Busolini (viola), Eric Dambrin (drums), Jean-Brice Godet (clarinets) and Artur Vidal (alto saxophone).
Recorded at Les Voûtes.
Some solo works
Underneath, a video of a soprano sax solo recorded live at the Instants Fugitifs in October 2008.
Some solo recordings underneath with:
– 1 site specific recording with tram T2 line
– 1 electroacoustic composition realized for an installation/performance/exhibition of student works at lycée J. Prévert of Boulogne
– 1 solo concert