JULIANA VENTER Born 08.10.1970 in Pretoria in South Africa. Lives and works in Oslo and internationally. Born and raised in an Afrikaans family in South Africa and Namibia, where she studied opera and piano. From 2000 she lived and worked in London, Scotland, Munich and Berlin. In 2016, she moved to Norway. Speaks and writes fluently: Afrikaans, English and German. Understands, studies and performs both as an actor and singer in Norwegian. Introduction: Juliana Venter is a different artist in that she is primarily a singer who operates in notated and free-improvised music, classical and extended vocal techniques, contemporary music, noise, jazz, baroque music, folk music expressions from Norway, Southern Africa, West Africa , Central Asia, Arabic music, Japanese and Chinese traditional musical expressions as well as rock and pop. She has a very distinctive expression. She is also an actress who operates in both film and theatre. She is a composer for large and original ensembles, and at the same time she makes music for just her own voice or the various regular collaborations she has with various musicians, from a traditional singer / songwriter tradition to modernist and conceptual contemporary music. In addition, she has done countless cross-genre performance concerts and music / theatre performances. ( NB not to be confused with musicals) Operationally trained from 1985-98. She is known for her heartfelt voice, wide palette and her groundbreaking and at times extreme expression. She has been called by the press, “the queen of South African avant-garde“ She was the frontrunner in the music and performance band The Mud Ensemble from Johannesburg, which achieved cult status as pioneers in avant-garde music theatre in South Africa in the 1990s. The Mud Ensemble was also known for its work against apartheid. In 2011, she released an album documenting The Mud Ensemble's material from 1993 to 1997. She has contributed to several international recordings, and released the solo album Spooky attraction from a distance in 2011, based on Einstein's theory of "Spooky action at a distance" (quantum entanglement) by the music press mentioned in the same breath as Anthony Hegarty and Joanna Newsom, as an important contribution to the avant-folk style. In 2018, she released the noise album W / V Concave, together with James Wellburn, an album that has received many praises and good reviews in the international music press. Of those she has collaborated with who are known in Norway and internationally can be mentioned e.g. Josef Suchy, Carlo Mombeli, Poing, Oslo Sinfonietta, Maja SK Ratkje, Frøde Haltli, Håkon Thelin, Per Oddvar Johansen, Kouame Sereba, Becaye Aw, KORK, Frikar, Munor Ensemble, Eivind Lønning, Harald Hårfagres Kammerorkester, Eirik Raude and Mats Eilertsen,Thomas Mahmoud, Håkon Mjåset Johansen, James Welburn, Bjarne Kvinnsland, Cara Stacey,ShArt ensemble, Mouvoir tanz Kompanie ,Jo Strømgren and Marius Kolbenstvedt, Det Utvalgte, Øyvind Berg, Jerry Mofokeng, Aletta Bezuidenhout, Guy De Lancy, Gavin Hood, Etienne Kallos ext. Awards / nominations 2018; The Harvesters a South African feature film was selected for the Cannes International film festival competing in the Un Certain Regard section. She was nominated Best Supporting Actress at the Silver screen film festival in South Africa. 2019;, Received the Hedda Award (Norways prestigious theatre awards) for Special artistic effort with The chosen ones for the performance The Ship vol 5. Scholarships / residences 2020 Recipient of the Rauschenberg Foundation's travel grant and scholarship stay for 5 weeks on Captiva Island in Florida to develop their own projects. 2019 Travel support from Music Norway for W / V album tour. 2018 FFUK travel support for preliminary project and development of «Bird Project» / Bokmakierie with Cara Stacey in Swaziland and Johannesburg. 2017 received support for a record with Nystrøm / Venter from FFUK 2013 Support from the National Arts Council of South Africa for preliminary project for the opera Soul of the White Ant in Namibia. 1998 Support from the National Arts Council of South Africa for a project with The Mud Ensemble. Excerpt actor performances in recent years : • She stars in a new international feature film from South Africa, The Harvesters, about a Boer family at the end of apartheid. This was selected for the Cannes Film Festival in 2018, in the Un Certain Regard category, and has won awards at the Sundance Festival, and was nominated for "best supporting actress" at the Silver Screen Festival in South Africa. Industry magazine Variety called her performance "superb". • Venter has studied the Meisner technique with Mike Bernardin from the Actor's Space in Berlin, which she also now teaches. She is a student of the renowned acting coach Susan Batson (permanent coach for Nicole Kidman and Juliette Binoche, among others) • She has played Gonorill in King Lear, and played the part of Yvette Pottier in Brecht's Mother Courage which toured in South Africa. • In 2018 and 2019, she had leading roles as an actor and singer and co-composer in 4 productions by the internationally renowned Norwegian theater group De Utvalgte. The last of the productions was performed as part of the Ultima Festival, and together with the rest of the company she received the Hedda Prize for special artistic effort. She had a leading role in the music theatre performance Congress of Dreams as an actress and singer, and highlighted by Ida Lou Larsen in the review of the performance, Directed by Susanne Øglænd with music by Rolf-Erik Nystrøm. Black Box in Oslo. Together with Håkon Thelin, Trond Høvik, Per Oddvar Johansen, Anne Kokkin and others. Education: - When she was 9 years old, she won national talent competitions (called Eisteddfod) in the class Best Singer. - As a 13-year-old, she was selected as the one who represented her junior high school as a singing soloist in Namibia's national revue group. They toured along the Caprivi Strip during the Angolan War, traveling in convoys through war zones filled with landmines to perform and sing for the soldiers stationed at the border. - 14 years old, she was admitted to Johannesburg Music, Ballet and Art School. There she studied under the highly respected and internationally renowned bass baritone Dawie Couzyn, who has performed at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, the Vienna State Opera and the Covent Garden. He remained her teacher for 13 years and helped her achieve an international level in classical vocal use, studies in classical music and lead singing. At the age of 17, she became the youngest member of South Africa's opera choir, and the same year she debuted as an actress and singer with the award-winning theater director Ilse van Hemert together with some of South Africa's leading actors. - Furthermore, she continued to tour around schools in South Africa through the organization PACT (Performing Arts Council of Transvaal). - She studied acting, theater and film privately, with Aletta Bezuidenhout, Jaquie Singer and Clare Stopford and eventually got many roles in TV, film and on stage. Masterclasses as vocalist / composer: 2019 Studies in harmonic singing with David Hykes. at his institute in Pommerau. 2018 Improvisation with Professor George Lewis (hand-picked for Ultima's workshop) 2015 With vocalist and improviser Phil Minton in London. 2020 Studying singing with Håkan Hagegard and Sven Bjørkoy in Norway and Sweden. Masterclasses in acting (theater and film): 2012- Ongoing Annual Method Acting Studies with Star Instructor / Coach Susan Batson (Juliette Binoche, Nicole Kidman) 2011-2013 studies in Meisner technique at The Actor's Space in Berlin International 2012. Studies in Mikhail Checkov's technique. • Activity 2020 composition, performance and acting. 1. Dans for voksne; premiere of composition for voice, tree trunk and motorcycle. 2. Morning concert Sagene church: The wolf hour by Juliana Venter and Rolf-Erik Nystrøm. 3. Corona sessions with Jo Strømgren company as singer and actress in a free improvised performance with ballet dancer Silas Henriksen. 4. The Drop Festival at renowned jazz venue Cosmopolite (live stream) fund raiser for refugees.Rolf-Erik Nystrøm and Mats Eilertsen. 5. Nakba 72 -performance composition and vocals with Rolf-Erik Nystrøm. For the Palestinian cause in Gaza. 6. Pre-project writing and creating (Floating mirror) with Marius Kolbensvedt and Julian Skar and Torbjørn Martin Davidson . 7. Founding of Skeleton coast a music theatre company with M. Kolbenstvedt, R-E Nystrøm and F Haverøy. 8. Minefield; premiere of a new music theatre work at Kunstnernes hus in December 2020 . Direction and text M.Kolbenstvedt.Composer. Bjørn Skjelbred. 9. Duo concert with Rolf-Erik Nystrøm at Exhibition opening landscape painting Jon Løvøen on Sandøya island. - Blowout 10 year festival celebration of the prestigious free improv series with my new trio Karawane with Øyvind Skarbø and Vilia Ellefsen-Larson from DNA. (18-22 August) Nasjonal jazz scene. 10. Duo concert Nystrøm / Venter asked to create a remix of one of Scandinavias most important female composers works Åse Hedstrøm. 11. Oslo world music festival concert with world renowned free improv drummer Paal Nilssen- Love. 12. Commissioned work for Oslo literature festival Barne festivalen and African resistance poetry. Activity 2019 Own projects under development. As a composer and singer: Research / recording work and composition for «Bird Song project» / Bokmakierie in Swaziland using traditional instruments and musicians from Swaziland and the Norwegian super trio Poing. Based on bird song from South Africa and Norway. Projects as a singer, actress and composer: -Main role as actress and singer in Skipet vol. 6 with De Utvalgte in Hofteatret in Copenhagen. -Fra Hæl Til Himmel (Human cockroaches), a music theater production based on a text by and with Torgeir Rebolledo Pedersen, music composed by Rolf-Erik Nystrøm, Juliana Venter, Eirik Raude;also starring: Marius Kolbenstvedt, Janne Eraker and Håkon Sigernes. -Draumefangeren, produced by Frikar dansekompani v /pani v / Halgrim Hansegård, with Bjarne Kvinnsland, Eirik Raude and Rolf-Erik Nystrøm.