UNMUTE

UNMUTE

UNMUTE is a concert and a dance performance, a hybrid outcome of a creative encounter between choreographer Keren Levi and composer Yannis Kyriakides. It is a musical and visceral event for and by three dancers and two musicians - members of percussion ensemble Slagwerk Den Haag. With this shared work, Levi and Kyriakides are entering an area where technology and the physical skills of dancers and musicians play upon each other, weaving together movement score, live music and a soundscape of digitally processed voices. In the midst of the technological entanglement between bodies and musical composition that those bodies initiate and perform, a pattern of speech gradually emerges. The dancers and musicians are channelling fields of computer generated voices and layers of sounds through mediation of sensors worn on their arms. Spoken fragments, detached from their physical origin, keep hovering over the embodied landscape. Performers on stage are paradoxically both in control and controlled by them. Being messengers of the invisible, carriers of cultures both forgotten and not yet existent, as prophets, mediums, daemons and cyborgs, the performers are at the same time speaking to us and for us. They are un-muting the otherness of languages already dead and still unborn. Languages which, like music that is carrying them, are not voicing anything else but an urgent need to be heard.

Rather than demanding from the spectator to focus on a content/meaning of speech, this embodied yet abstract choreography of gestures is expressing pure desire to communicate (in sound and in movement). The spectator’s attention is redirected away from the message and toward a medium: a virtual sphere of “speak-ability” inside of which space is created for the mute to articulate its own demand to be heard. In that no-man’s land, that zone between ancient and post-human technologies, an opportunity for transformation and emancipation arise.

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Credits

Concept and Choreography Keren Levi

Concept and Musical Composition Yannis Kyriakides

In collaboration with:

Performance, Music and Choreography Eva Susova, Charlie Laban Trier, Matthew Day, Fedor Teunisse, Marianna Soroka, (Pepe Garcia in the development stage)

Dramaturgal advice Igor Dobričić

Sensor Server and Software Development Darien Brito

Sensor System and Sound Technique Michele Abolaffio

Light Desgin and Technique Martin Kaffarnik

Styling (Marrianna, MAtthew, Charlie & Eva) Ginta Tinte

Photography Eti Steinberg, Assi Weitz

Graphic Design Miritte Ben Yitzchak

Management and Strategy Jette Schneider (NeverLike/Transistor) Liesbeth Kok (Slagwerk Den Haag)

Fund-raising and Concept Development Judith Schoneveld (NeverLike/Transistor)

Marketing and PR Liorah Hoek (NeverLike), Marije de Graaf (Slagwerk Den Haag)

Production Stephie Kolman (Slagwerk Den Haag)

Premiere October 3rd, 2019 | Festival Nederlandse Dansdagen, Maastricht NL


UNMUTE is a co-production of Keren Levi | NeverLike and Slagwerk Den Haag and is funded by Performing Arts Fund NL, Norma Fund, Creative Industries Fund NL and Amsterdam Fund for the Arts. With the support of Veem House for Performance, BAU dance & performance platform Amsterdam & ICK Amsterdam .


Calendar

26/09/202026/09/20Forum Freies TheaterDüsseldorf, DE
25/09/202025/09/20Forum Freies TheaterDüsseldorf, DE
15/02/202015/02/20MEERVART THEATREAMSTERDAM, NL
08/02/202008/02/20Theater Im PumpenhausMünster, DE
07/02/202007/02/20Theater Im PumpenhausMünster, DE
24/01/202024/01/20LUXNijmegen, NL
22/11/201922/11/19chassé theaterBreda, NL
09/11/201909/11/19Rotterdamse SchouwburgRotterdam, NL
06/11/201906/11/19Ins BlauLeiden, NL
31/10/201931/10/19Korzo theaterDen Haag, NL
26/10/201926/10/19Theater KikkerUtrecht, NL
19/10/201919/10/19FrascatiAmsterdam, NL
18/10/201918/10/19FrascatiAmsterdam, NL
17/10/201917/10/19FrascatiAmsterdam, NL
05/10/201905/10/19Nederlandse DansdagenMaastricht, NL
03/10/201903/10/19Nederlandse DansdagenMaastricht, NL
05/09/201905/09/19GaudeamusUtrecht, NL

Reviews

03/10/201903/10/19PARALLEL UNIVERSUM ZONDER VERBALE OF VISUELE EXPRESSIE
05/02/202005/02/20MENSCHMASCHINEN ERZEUGEN KLÄNGE | HUMAN MACHINES PRODUCE SOUND
11/02/202011/02/20COMPLEX WECHSELSPIEL AUS MUSIK UND BEWEGUNG / COMPLEX INTERPLAY OF MUSIC AND MOVEMENT
20/10/201920/10/19Op papier is Unmute een fascinerend experiment, maar als voorstelling is het een loodzware zit