Text by CLOT Magazine
Rewire is an annual international festival for adventurous music in the city of The Hague. After its online edition last year, Rewire will return to The Hague with its eleventh festival edition, bringing together a wide range of musical and interdisciplinary performances, specially commissioned works, club nights, installations, talks, screenings, and more. From 7 to 10 April 2022, Rewire will present forward-thinking and genre-bending music across a diverse range of venues.
This year’s festival edition presents a multi-day focus programme dedicated to composer, singer and interdisciplinary artist Meredith Monk. Monk, one of the most influential names in contemporary music and performing arts, will present works on multiple days of the festival.
This includes a concert version of Cellular Songs with her acclaimed Vocal Ensemble. In addition, Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble will also perform MEMORY GAME with the celebrated and frequently collaborating ensemble Bang on a Can All-Stars.
Other highlights are the performance of 100 Cymbals, a collaboration between Ryoji Ikeda and the music ensemble Les Percussions de Strasbourg. Employing ten percussionists in a geometrical set-up consisting of one hundred cymbals, the typically percussive instrument suddenly becomes a site of harmonic tension, producing alluring and hypnotic sounds that verge on droning synthesisers.
The Caretaker’s show, devoted to sonically charting the advancement of Alzheimer’s disease, will be presented with visuals by Weirdcore. The world premiere of the inaugural live performance of Emptyset‘s James Ginzburg and Ziúr’s project Myxomy, a show that sounds like a vibrant club event and feels like a forward-thinking rock concert.
Composer, performer, and operatic countertenor M Lamar will premiere Machines and Other Intergalactic Technologies of The Spirit, a piece that is heavily inspired by Sun Ra’s retro-futurist sci-fi projections on the mind and spirit.
Channelling contemporary Lebanon’s political, economic and social unrest, Jerusalem In My Heart will stage a site-specific performance of their urgent work, including their latest album Qalaq, that incorporates analogue visuals projected by 16mm film projectors.
Musician, producer and performer Nkisi (presented in collaboration with Vlaams Cultuurhuis de Brakke Grond) boasts a new A/V performance that explores the gestural world of the Zangbeto, while Debit will perform a live rendition of her latest album The Long Count on which the New York-based musician routes archival recordings of prehispanic, Mexican woodwind instruments through contemporary production techniques, including machine learning.
As the nightlife has been halted by the pandemic for almost two years, Rewire 2022 will offer different perspectives on contemporary club music. Within this context, vocalist and composer Stine Janvin, and choreographer Ula Sickle will present Echoic Choir, a performance that meditates on the ritual of coming together on a dance floor around music. Holly Childs & Gediminas Žygus will translate their album Gnarled Roots into an intense and intertextual performance. And Joachim Badenhorst will perform for the first time as a duo with eclectic electronic producers Hiele and Claire Rousey.
More artists and projects added to the festival lineup are The Bug featuring Dis Fig, Flowdan, Manga Saint Hilare, Caterina Barbieri, Mira Calix, Helm, Sweatmother, Silvia Tarozzi, Pavel Milyakov & Yana Pavlova, Lamin Fofana and Tarta Relena, among many others.
