Thomas Johannsen

Thomas Johannsen is a maker, performer and teacher in the field of interdisciplinary improvisation, with a special focus on the human voice. He is the artistic director of Amsterdam based vocal instant composition ensemble The Genetic Choir.

With this group of vocal performers from various disciplines Thomas develops artistic ideas about dynamic open systems, authorship, swarm intelligence, chaos and self-organization. His projects often connect socially relevant issues to artistic work forms and are situated at the interface between music, the performing arts and philosophy.

See for current projects http://genetic-choir.org

Thomas has brought this unique blend of embodied voice improvisation and composing to countries such as France, Italy, Czech Republic, England, Germany, the United States and Japan.
He is co-founder of WhatIIIF? – an international, nomadic improvisation research festival, with yearly editions since 2017. The wide range of improvisers connected to what if are trying to collectively answer to the impossible challenge of finding a shared vocabulary for interdisciplinary improvisation. They gather their efforts on http://impro.wiki and the Knowledge Base is open for anyone to consult and contribute to.

Being a teacher and practitioner of aikido as well, this martial art has strongly influenced his improvising methods: How to find strong embodiment in whichever discipline you are using and the ability to have subtle and razor-sharp (musical) connections with other improvisers while creating together.