Ephemera Festival
Unsound Presents Ephemera Festival, A New Multi-Arts Event in Warsaw.
EPHEMERA is a new multi-arts festival based in Warsaw, presented by Unsound.
Although this inaugural edition has been limited in size due to the pandemic, it nevertheless indicates the bold concept - a festival where music, dance, theatre and visual arts reverberate with one another across the city. With a focus on both the local and international arts scene, the event is presented with Warsaw’s vital cultural activists, organisations and institutions, in a sign of solidarity at a difficult time.
The headlining event is Chernobyl on September 12th, a live presentation of Hildur Guðnadóttir’s award-winning score for Chernobyl. This show follows on from Guðnadóttir last year winning an Oscar, Golden Globe and Emmy for her scores for Chernobyl and Joker.
Due to the pandemic, this is now only one of two "Chernobyl live" shows taking place internationally this year, following on from a show at CTM in February, with the harrowing music having taken on new layers of meaning. Taking place in a former printworks, the show will be presented according to very strict rules to ensure that it is as safe as possible in respect to COVID-19, rules that will also become a part of the experience itself, an experiment in how live music can be presented in 2020’s harsh reality.
Joining Hildur on stage for this immersive, moving experience are collaborators Sam Slater and Chris Watson, as well as Francesco Donadello (sound spatialisation) and Theresa Baumgartner (light design).
Artist and choreographer Alex Baczyński-Jenkins will present the long-awaited Polish premiere of "Untitled (holding horizon)" at Nowy Teatr, in which Baczyński-Jenkins draws on the box step, a basic movement used in several social dances, to create a choreography exploring desire, disorientation and collectivity. A live DJ set and lighting respond to and affect the bodies in motion, while the soundscape elicits associations shifting between the pastoral, romantic, sci-fi and the memory of a rave.
Closing the weekend are two outdoor performances. Berlin-based U.S. artist Lyra Pramuk is a classically trained vocalist fusing pop sensibilities, performance practices and contemporary club culture in what may best be described as futurist folk music. Also a vocal activist and member of the queer community, she recently released the acclaimed album Fountain. On the same lineup is Warsaw artist Antonina Nowacka, who will present a concert version of her new composition "Still life" together with Michał Czachor and Grzegorz Artman. The artists have created a “vocal sculpture” – a sonic structure analizing the potential of voice apparatus in the exploration of the idea of farewells. The work is part of the theatre performance directed by Agnieszka Jakimiak and commissioned by Teatr Powszechny.
Andrzej Nowak will perform with a concert taking place on November 14-15 in TR Warszawa. More information on this mysterious project will be revealed soon.
"Chernobyl live", Lyra Pramuk and Antonina Nowacka’s concert are presented as part of the closing weekend of Warsaw’s Museum of Modern Art’s exhibition, "The Penumbral Age. Art in the Time of Planetary Change", exploring issues of the effects climate change has on humanity and the planet. To quote the curators of the exhibition, we agree that “art will certainly not protect us against catastrophe, but it can help us arm ourselves with ‘strange tools’ for the work of imagination and empathy” – a sentiment Ephemera Festival connects with.
All events included in this program will adapt and might change in response to the current COVID-19 situation.
We also encourage you to follow upcoming program announcements and discussions connected with Unsound 2020.
