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Harmonias is a performance that invites artists to examine from different cultural perspectives the notion of harmony in music and its embodied expression of togetherness. It involves musician and vocalist of Hindustani Classical music Shruti Bode, musician and singer of traditional Arabic music Sadim Alzafari, dancer and singer Esther Cowens focusing on the music of her cultural heritage African American and Moluccan traditional music, as well as composer and pianist Dunja Crnjanski working for this project with the traditional Balkan music.

 

Harmonias creates a space where the concept of polyphony in music expands from the simultaneity of melodic lines and voices to the simultaneity of bodies, and cultures. As a choreographic, musical and performative space, Harmonias invites plurality. Plurality of aesthetics, practices, sensibilities and perspectives, so that musical polyphony becomes a means to explore the concept of authorial polyphony with the idea to create a common without letting go of singularities. While the performance proposes shifts, turns and interruptions from one culture to another, from one aesthetic to another, from one conception of harmony to another; harmony is not just a topic anymore but becomes mergence of realities in our desire to come together.

Link to the Song texts in German for Screenreader

Concept & artistic direction: Alexandre Achour 

In co-authorship with: Sadim Alzafari, Shruti Bode, Esther Cowens, Dunja Crnjanski

Performance: Sadim Alzafari, Shruti Bode, Esther Cowens, Dunja Crnjanski

Artistic collaboration and sound design: Gregorio Rodriguez Orozco

Light design: Anja Sekulić
Audio description: Emmilou Rössling, Silja Korn

Social Media: Aïsha Mia Lethen Bird

Consultations on dramaturgy & accessibility: Saša Asentić

Executive producer: Stephan Wagner 

A production by Alexandre Achour in collaboration with Uferstudios

 

Funded by Hauptstadtkulturfonds

Supported by the Senate Department for Culture and Community for the research on audio-description and Goethe Insitute for the artistic research in India. 

 

Thank you to Barbara Greiner, Nataša Murge Savić, Illay Chester, Lee Méir, Nina Runa Essendrop, Nadja Lipsyc, Kai Aguiluz and Tamara Antonijević

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Alexandre Achour

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