It’s been a week since the concert in Warsaw with the Hashtag Ensemble.
It was an incredibly short but wonderfully satisfying trip back to Poland. I’m so happy I could spend three days working with the fantastic musicians from Hashtag Ensemble on my “Horror Project.”
I came up with the idea for a site-specific audiovisual parkour with a guide around 2017 and wrote all three pieces within two years. It’s been a few years since then, but the horror theme kept coming back in my music, for example, in “Restless” from last year. Having all three pieces performed during one night, in a space so dearly maintained by the ensemble (Hashtag Lab), was a dream come true.
I’m grateful to everyone in Hashtag Ensemble for making this happen. Thank you, Ania Karpowicz, Aleksandra Demowska-Madejska, and Lilianna Krych, for programming this concert. Lilianna Krych did a fantastic job of organizing this concert and is a producer anyone could wish for.
Magdalena Kordylasińska, Adam Eljasiński, and Dominik Płociński did a wonderful job becoming mannequins and making scary sounds in “Yuggoth.” Kamila Wąsik-Janiak fiercely faced her internal struggles with a beloved instrument in “on the other side.” Urszula Nowakowska, who joined the ensemble for this concert, told a story about an imaginary illness, female hysteria, in “The Final Girl.” Wojciech Błażejczyk did an amazing job performing live electronics and navigating the different setups with Kosma Sztandera.
The concert ended with a fun post-concert talk with Jan Topolski from Glissando Magazine and a projection of “Hereditary.” If you were there, I hope you enjoyed the performance and the two CRT TV installations in the hallways with films by yours truly and Izumi Yoshida.
You can find more info about the concert under this link.
Photo credit: Magda Starowieyska.