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Geweld
&
Vibrato

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On colonialism
On the extreme violence during the ‘police actions’ in Indonesia
and about cross-border vibrato

An operatic performance for singing actor and soprano,
3 percussionists, 3 strings, live electronics, radio and insect sounds.

Composer Huba de Graaff found in her parents’ estate letters and photographs of her maternal uncle who fought in Indonesia for the Dutch army. In sharp contrast are all the documents she found from her paternal Indo grandfather. He appeared to have been friends with members of the Indonesian anti-colonial resistance. She is the living product of two families, embodying the two sides of this colonial war.

A Dutch soldier conducts a small orchestra in the interior of Indonesia. The music-making “natives” don’t really cooperate, and gradually, more and more annoying insects appear. Whipped up by the historic speeches of General Spoor and Prime Minister Beel, the whole thing escalates into an outburst of transgressive vibrato and theatrical violence.

An unorthodox opera, in which the phenomenon of “vibrato” is used as a metaphor for the violence of Western expansionism: overwhelming and forced transgressive vibrato.

 

Credits

  • Singing actor:
    Xander van Vledder
  • Soprano, violin:
    Kitty Lai
  • Cello:
    Amber Docters van Leeuwen
  • Double bass:
    Vasilis Stefanopoulos
  • Percussion:
    HIIIT (Pepe Garcia, Mei-Yi Lee, Joao Brito)
  • Composition:
    Huba de Graaff
  • Direction:
    Marien Jongewaard
  • Dramaturgy:
    Melissa Knollenburg
  • Advice:
    Erik-Ward Geerlings
  • Sound design:
    Nina Kraszewska
  • Scenography & light design:
    Bogi Bakker
  • Costumes:
    Leila El Alaoui & Dewi Barend
  • Production:
    Keshia Emke
  • Images:
    Emmy Visser
  • Photography:
    Bowie Verschuuren
  • Publicity:
    Lonneke van Eden
  • Business direction:
    Jasper Hupkens

“The essence of colonialism is its own superiority and the inferiority of the other.”

— (Hassnae Bouazza, NRC 17-06-23)

 

The essence of music-making is listening to and resonating with each other, but this is hardly possible when you are loudly pounding away on everything with vibrato that takes up too much space.
This opera is about ‘colonialism’: about one’s own superiority and the inferiority of the other.
About not listening to those inferior “others,” insects they are, you might as well crush them right away.

Simultaneously with the expansion of the musical ideal of sound in Europe (around the 17th century) in which the Baroque orchestra expanded into the mega-symphony orchestra as we still know it today, people from the West also began to expand territorially and to conquer and plunder new territories with extreme expansionism.
‘Vibrato’ was developed not only as a means of expression, but mainly as a technique to increase volume and impact. But…when you ‘vibrate’ very loudly you cannot hear or listen to another person at all.

 

 

Video

Agenda