Gymnastics of Non/Sense ii

Between 4 and 17 January 2021, the Old Power Station in Ljubljana hosts an art laboratory as part of the project Gymnastics of non/sense II, produced by the Sploh Institute. It is a project by composer Matej Bonin that builds on the challenges set out in the project Gymnastics of non/sense (2014–2016), which has already questioned the conventional ways of creating a musical composition and sought the hidden potentials of music.

The project combined two media – poetry and music. But not as separate layers, i.e. as text and musical accompaniment, but rather as two interdependent media where the words “grow into” the music and thus “sound” themselves, and the music seeks its identity in the very sound and appearance of the syllables/words. In the first project, the text has been written in advanced and drew from the Karl Hmeljak’s collection of poems Krčrk (2012), and the stage set was quite static. Gymnastics of non/sense II goes a step further. On the one hand, Hmeljak’s text is written specifically for this project and evolves parallel to the sound material, and on the other hand, it is based on the assumption that each concert is really a performance, because at the moment of its public presentation, it becomes subject to that key element – the listener or the viewer – that connects, with its unpredictability and autonomy, everything around it into potentially coherent ideas. In this sense, the project goes beyond being static and also takes into account the body in the space that performs it. As a result, it focuses on three media: sound, words, and movement. It is for this reason that Gymnastics of non/sense II has chosen a performing ensemble that could emphasize these movement qualities more easily.

The ensemble consists of singer/dancer Irena Tomažin and six percussionists – Špela Mastnak, Lola Mlačnik, Jože Bogolin, Jan Čibej, Simon Klavžar and Luka Poljanec.
In addition to the performers on stage, Karlo Hmeljak (text and dramaturgy), Tomaž Grom (sound engineer), Marko Čeh (space consultant) and Marko Turkuš (light consultant) are also participating in the project.

The project is being produced by the Sploh Institute (Špela Trošt, Brigita Gračner).

Date

04. - 17. 01. 2021
Expired!

Location

Stara mestna elektrarna
Ljubljana