Graduated in language and performance studies in 1993, Myriam Van Imschoot’s first work experiences alternated between writing on dance and teaching & researching at the Institute for Cultural Studies at the KULeuven, where she co-founded the Performance Studies section. In 2001 she founded Sarma, which developed into an independent laboratory for artistic research, writing and dramaturgy with an extended database of dance and performance anthologies, consulted all over the world. Up to this date Sarma is run by her and Jeroen Peeters, a collaboration that renews itself along with their shifting interests and embedments.
Through artistic collaborations, Van Imschoot engaged with the work of Meg Stuart, Vera Mantero, Benoît Lachambre, Philipp Gehmacher, Antonia Baehr, Dianne Weller, Aurélien Froment, Christine De Smedt, etc as a dramaturge, performer and curator.
In 2006 and 2007 her first works were released in the framework of Sarma-related projects (like the Community Pictures and the staging of the participatory role-play ‘society game’ Project – The Game on mobility and artistic community in B-Chronicles).
More recent art works revolve around the notion of the sound archive in contemporary and auditive culture. Often employing anachronistic media, Van Imschoot exposes the tensions and relations with knowledge industries, transmission and history practices. In this cycle belong amongst others works the following pieces: FAX FILM (2008), video in collaboration with Pablo Castilla, evoking the politics of a long list of names, between stardom and oblivion; Pick up Voices (2008), a performance duet with Christine De Smedt, based on a reenactment or ‘extreme quoting’ of interviews with choreographers; Black Box (2009), a sound installation in the form of an interactive jukebox with self-made records containing testimonies on improvisation; and the solo Living Archive, (2011) based on a personally collected sound and interview archive. She co-directed with Peter Van den Bempt, The Search Project, a theater play for Tristero, entirely composed with materials coming from an archive of classifieds (2010). These works were presented internationally in exhibitions, festivals and art venues, like Playground at Stuk, Jan van Eyck Academie, Kaaitheater, Frascati, Intimate Strangers Festival, etc.
Vozes de Magaio, (2011) a landscape performative sound work, in collaboration with visual artist Toine Horvers, for the Binaural Sound Arts Center in Portugal, is the start of a cycle, dealing with public space, landscape, acoustics and long-distance communication modes, like calling, yelling, waving, singing (yodeling, whistling). Currently Van Imschoot prepares several voice and performance-based works in that frame.
In 2012/2013 Myriam Van Imschoot is in training with Jean-René Toussaint (Primitive Voice Work). In parallel, she continues a series of voice workshops and labs that she has been setting since 2009 ((Voice Week, Voicelab, SI2010, Voice Day, Soirée Parole at Recyclart, and a planned workshop/lab in 2012 for WorkspaceBrussels). By way of testing various formats for artistic exchange as well as presentation of small formatted voice work, she hopes to propose alternatives that cherish the emergence of temporary syn-energies.
Myriam Van Imschoot is affiliated as a mentor to the Masters in Choreography in Amsterdam (Amch), as a supervisor to the Phd-program in the Arts (Leiden/Den Hague), and a guest mentor at Piet Zwart Instituut (Rotterdam). She taught workshops on creative response for SODA and Amch.
myriamvanimschoot 