RITES FOR A NEW UTOPIA

28/03/2015

Utopias are by definition places that do not exist. Nevertheless the very real remains of past utopian projects are all around us and keep informing our imagination and aspirations. In the process of creating models of the world as it could be rather then of how it is, radical art practices have often reinvented social and material modes of production as a playground for broader social change.

Rites for a New Utopia is a theatrical event that responds to two aspirations: the dream of abolishing traditional social hierarchies, enacted by refusing to accept the rigid separation between composer, performer, instrument maker and audience, and the ambition of returning to an ancestral unity of the arts by combining image, sound, space, movement and the body within the continuum of esthetic experience.

The program will feature new works for the 17th century carillon of the Grote Kerk by Lars Kynde, which will be performed by Gijsbert Kok and processed electroacoustically within the nave of the church by Ángel Faraldo and a series of site-specific performances with new instruments and sound sculptures by Mariska de Groot, Matteo Marangoni and Dieter Vandoren. The evening will end with a special performance of Partita for Variable Air Compression by Horst Rickels, a seminal work of Dutch sound art which was first presented in The Hague in 1989 and which will be performed by Rickels on his self-made organ Mercurius Wagen.

Rites for a New Utopia is presented by the artist-run platform iii in cooperation with Het Nutshuis and Dag in de Branding and is part of the celebrations for the 25th anniversary of the ArtScience Interfaculty. The program is made possible with the additional support of the Municipality of The Hague, Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds, the Creative Industries Fund NL and the Danish Arts Foundation.

Works by:
Horst Rickels, Ángel Faraldo, Lars Kynde, Mariska de Groot, Matteo Marangoni and Dieter Vandoren

March 28th 2015, Grote Kerk, Den Haag
Tickets: €12 full price, €6.50 students

Performance schedule:
19:00 first call of the carillon (Á. Faraldo, L. Kynde)
22:00 second call of the carillon (Á. Faraldo)
22:15 mass in the idiosyncratic manner (M. de Groot, M. Marangoni, D. Vandoren)
22:45 Partita for Variable Air Compression (H. Rickels)