Panda van Proosdij

Panda van Proosdij studied at the Rotterdam Dance Academy in the Netherlands. She has been a teacher at Codarts, Music Theatre in Rotterdam and worked with The Netherlands Children Choir, The Netherlands Female Youth Choir and Wilma ten Wolde as a movement coach and director for more than 10 years.
For fifteen years now Panda has been working on her method / philosophy: ‘Voice & Physique’ This method is about supporting the voice by creating a good physical awareness and a way to let movement contribute to the quality of singing. She gives workshops and masterclasses ‘Voice & Physique’ all over the world and creates Choireography* for different choirs and their events.
In April 2014 her book ‘Voice & Physique’ has been published and her 2nd book ‘Choireography’ was launched in April 2019. In July 2022 Helbling Publishing issued two Ebooks of Panda’s work which contain video’s of her exercises and 18 brand new canons with choireography: Waking & Warming Up and Panda’s Choireographies.
In 2014 and 2018 she created the winning program of the Aarhus Pigekor with conductor Helle Høyer Vedel during ‘The World Choir Games’ in Riga and Tschwane- South Africa. In 2015 they won the Silver Rose Bowl of ‘Let the Peoples Sing’ in Munich, Germany.
As an atelier leader Panda has worked in different European festivals: Europa Cantat (Mainz 2006, Utrecht 2009, Bonn 2008 +2010, Pärnu/Estland 2011, Turin 2012, Bergen 2014, Pécs/Hungary 2015, Lyon 2017, Tallinn 2018, Ljubljana 2021) and for AMJ Eurotreff (Wolfenbüttel 2007 +2017), Leipziger Symposium für Kinder – und Jugendstimmen (2011) FCEC 48 Festival Internacional de Cant Coral (Barcelona, 2013), Choralies (Vaison-la-Romaine 2016 +2019), Leading Voices (2022, MC), VoiceUp A capella Festival, Istanbul (2023) Singing Bridges, Novi Sad (2024).
Panda also directs musicals, light opera and music theatre performances.
In 2014 she won an award for ‘Best Director’ and in 2016 for ‘Best Choreography’.
In Slovenia Panda has done various projects in the past few years. Europa Cantat sLOVEnia 2021 with workshops for Slovenian choirs in Brežice and Ljubljana. Since she lives partially in Slovenia now she also works together with David Bandelj and his Choir Emil Komel in Gorizia, Italy.
 
*Choireography is a term that Panda invented to point out that her work is about movement which supports the singing.