Interdisciplinary performance including classical music, electronic music, theatre, spoken word, dance, serious games, gamification, audience participation and research. An ingenious listening environment full of challenging tasks, in which the audience can sharpen their ears, become “listening mutants” and experience music in radically new ways.
Classical music and serious games in a radical listening labyrinth.
It is 2021 and for the nineteenth-century composer Mendelssohn it is make or break. Will his music survive in this multifaceted spectacle, will the symphony orchestra survive the third level of the interactive listening game? Composer Micha Hamel and director Arlon Luijten invite listeners, young and old, more and less experienced, to be guided by curiosity. Listening Mutant 2021 requires active audience participation in installations and “serious games. Gather the right listening skills for inside and outside the concert hall: ‘Mendelssohn, your game is on.’
Consortium partners
RASL – Rotterdam Arts and Science Lab
Codarts – Lectoraat Performance Practice
Willem de Kooning Academy
Erasmus University
Delft University of Technology
Creative team
Concept: Micha Hamel, Arlon Luijten
Stage director: Arlon Luijten
Music: Bram Kortekaas, Felix Mendelssohn
Texts: Daniël van Klaveren
Games: Arlon Luijten, Annebeth Erdbrink, dr. Rens Kortmann, Micha Hamel, dr. Janna Michael
Performers
Orchestra: philharmonie zuidnederland
Conductor: Bas Wiegers
Actress: Lidewij Mahler
Performers: students and alumni from Jeugdtheaterschool Zuidoost Amsterdam: Rowénshell Terrencio, Tizea Looijen, Keisha Boye, Annastasia Kah, Suradnya Badal, Dorelia Schraven, Jahcysha Boschman, Christopher Hatton, Deshelle Haynes, Nienke Cogenbach, Jelainy Entingh, coached by Nina Haanappel en Irene Lips.
Research: Annebeth Erdbrink, dr. Janna Michael, Micha Hamel, dr. Rens Kortmann, prof. dr. Koen van Eijck.
Interns game design: Gayatri Kodikal, Aldo de Vos.
Smartphone game: Students of the Hogeschool voor de Kunsten Utrecht: Ruben Hooijer, Misha van den Heuvel, Erik Wiersma, Wouter Kamies, Luuk Siewers en Reinier Maartense, coached by Henk Fakkeldij and Wiebe Giebels.
Listening objects: Jan Neggers and students of the MBO Theaterschool Rotterdam: Daantje Janmaat, Eileen Kissi, Jerrel van den Hoven, Nancy Koetsier, Siris Koch, Nina de Vet, Dwayne Collignon, Esmee Daenen, Bart Langerak, Lars Wassenaar, Elisabeth Azzaro, Hajar Yakhlef, Nika Ferwerda, Nica Kraus, Maud Weber, coached by Esther Viersen en David van der Wees, Nadia van Vuuren-den Hartogh, and Dirk Sonneveld.
Project Background
Listening is more fun, more difficult and more important than you think.
Micha Hamel:
‘A good listening culture is important in society, real life. Listening well to each other should be the foundation of a healthy democracy. Listening is a skill needed to be helpful. Allowing the other person’s perspective is through listening.’
‘In the nineteenth century, music was not only beautiful but also important,’ Hamel says. ‘It was socially important, and applied to the elevation of man, it was the highest art form. There was a lot of composing, mankind had to be elevated, the bourgeoisie had to have its own art form: there was Romanticism. Music was important for your formation as a human being. Now music is only beautiful. We are in a hedonistic age where it is all about experience and our own emotions and sensations. If we listen to a symphony by Mendelssohn or Schumann now, we find it especially beautiful, and we don’t think: this piece will make us better people. And people used to think that!
Hamel and associates are committed to teaching listening. Not by giving information about a symphony by Mendelssohn, which is in the program booklet, but by indicating how you might listen and what adventure listening is. ‘For learning to listen we use ‘serious games,’ you can reach a wide audience with that, it’s a great tool to train people with. When you game you have to engage with the game, and you automatically get directly connected to the subject of the game that way. If you yourself are an active participant in the performance, it comes to life for you in a different way. So you can only visit our performance if you participate, not if you think you can be a spectator.’
The Main Hall of the Muziekgebouw is set up as a listening garden. There will be music by Mendelssohn, and also by the young Dutch composer Bram Kortekaas, played by the philharmonie zuidnederland. A number of actors challenge us to think about whether classical music is old junk or not. By the way, we are not rehashing a classical concert, we really want to discover in what way classical music is relevant to today’s world.’
‘You should think of the concert hall as a gym to train your listening muscles. The performance is set up so that you discover what listening means to you. Listening mutant 2021 is not a dictate, like: you have to learn to listen, but you’ll find out that you’re not as good at it as you thought. You will discover what it is to listen to a person, to listen to music, and whether the two belong together. A symphony is ideally suited for this listening exercise, in its layering you can wander, it is an architectural structure with themes, a melody, voices that may or may not rub against each other – constantly there is something to which your attention is drawn. We hope someone comes in with two ears and leaves the building with five.’
