Petra Strahovnik about December 14
We asked composer Petra Strahovnik three questions about her work Through the Looking Glass. She uses music, sounds, performance art, video and electronics to paint the implications of afflictions such as ADHD, anxiety, depression and bi-polar disorder. She will present four of the five pieces of this series on December 14. The pieces are continuously performed by Ensemble Modelo62 in Zaal 3, Studio LOOS, DCR and the Rewire office and you can determine the route yourself.
The audience can choose its own route. Exciting! How does this work?
Freedom of choice. Follow your own instincts. It may lead you to stay with one performance through-out, it may guide you from one to another. But if you think for a moment, when you leave the room, the performance is continuing and therefore the condition of that individual is very much reality and for us the echo of their present.
How did you land on the idea to create new music about conditions like ADHD, autism, anxciety, depression and bipolar disorder?
I asked myself if I should involve art in spreading awareness on mental conditions and mental health? After discussing with psycologists working in the field, I leaned towards going with the challenge and connect art with this sensitive topic. It is a reflection on the path I’ve been and still am. Hopefully I can make a slight change in the current situation in society.
What is your goal with these pieces? What do you want your audience to take away from this?
The performances are very personal and can offer insights to the world of someone who may have neuroatypical brain. In a safe place like the presentations you may, if you allow yourself, experience feelings and sensations, that this someone feels everyday. Giving yourself time to observe and to live/relive through those musicians/performance artists, can give you deeper understanding and crate empathy. Hopefully the topic itself, the awareness, will stay consciously or unconsciously with the audience and come to life when needed, when someone would search for understanding.
The program Through the Looking Glass takes place on Saturday, December 14 at 5 p.m. in Zaal 3, Studio LOOS, DCR and the Rewire office as part of Festival Dag in de Branding. You can buy individual tickets via the website of Zaal 3. You can buy the passe-partout for the festival here.