Mikhail Karikis with
Juice
Scratch the Surface
Monica Ross
E.laine
Maurice Causey choreographer
Flat-e filmmakers
Conall Gleeson director
The London premiere of a major new work by composer and artist Mikhail Karikis. Coined by critics a ‘sound alchemist' (Le Monde) and noted for his ‘sumptuous experimentalism' (WIRE), Karikis leads the audience on a spectacular, poetic and thought-provoking journey combining music, visuals, dance and performance art. The composer joins forces with a team of artists including choreographer Maurice Causey (NDT), ensemble Scratch the Surface directed by Conall Gleeson, contemporary voice trio juice, performance artist Monica Ross, E.laine and cutting-edge filmmakers Flat-e, to create a multidisciplinary political opera that explores the theme of the ‘stranger'.
XENON Act 3: Sounds From Beneath
Sounds from Beneath is the third act of a six-part interdisciplinary project by artist Mikhail Karikis entitled Xenon: an exploded opera. Presented as an audio-visual installation, Sounds from Beneath finds Karikis in collaboration with visual artist Uriel Orlow and a male colliery choir.
Centred around a new work for voices, Karikis invited Snowdown Colliery Choir to recall and sing the subterranean sounds of a working mine, bringing a desolate disused coalmine back to life through song. A colliery in East Kent, once populated with workers, machines and the sounds of their activities transforms into an amphitheatre haunted by a stranger, resonating sounds of explosions in the ground, machines cutting the coal-face, shovels scratching the earth and the distant melody of the Miner's Lament, all sung by the choir grouping in formations reminiscent of picket lines.
Sounds from Beneath continues Mikhail Karikis's exploration of notions of the stranger and his engagement with the voice as a sculptural material, investigating diverse vocal acts and the marginalisation of voices. In addition to the work being a meditation on singing as an act of resistance and community, it ruminates upon the relationship between the human voice and the machine, reflects on the under-representation of old voices, while celebrating communal music-making.
XENON is commissioned by six UK festivals (EKFC).
'Mikhail Karikis's soundscapes bring the ecstatic spiritual passion of Greek orthodox choral music to the sexual embodiment of contemporary electronica. To see him perform is to witness someone making an instrument of the body to channel a dramatic, fitful, exuberant musical language.' Cherry Smyth, poet
Choose where you would like to sit. Use our seating plan to choose your price and seat.
Only £9.50 (£6.50 for KP45 concerts) and ONLY available online. You are guaranteed a seat but its location will be allocated by Box Office and available for collection one hour before the performance.
Date: Saturday 23 October
Time: 19:30
Venue: Hall One
Please note that online booking closes 90 minutes prior to the start of the performance.
