ICH & ICH & ICH [WIR]

The compositions in the programme ICH & ICH & ICH (WIR) [I & I & I (WE)], the new edition of the successful maulwerker performing music series at Ballhaus Ost, focus on the responsibilities and freedoms in open processes, the influence of one's own behaviour on the musical dynamics of the whole and the social processes reflected in them.
Such interactive music, which requires the performers to participate in the creation of the works, can only succeed if the participants get involved and really show themselves. In the best case scenario, the result is not only a collective expression, but also a portrait of the group.

The tension between collective process and unconditional concentration on one's own self and its musical possibilities for action is most evident in Pauline Oliveros' ‘Portraits of Maulwerker’, six simultaneous solos commissioned from Oliveros in 2007, which the Maulwerkers want to reinterpret after intensive study of Oliveros' work. The double portrait ‘Hallo Du!’ by composer-choreographer Antonia Baehr a.k.a. Henry Wilt thematises the relationship of a person to a non-human other - a personal object or an instrument.

The Mexican composer Rolando Hernández Guzmán deals with Mesoamerican indigenous culture and the role of oral tradition within it. As a consequence, “Amoxohtoca II” consists of oral instructions and a score of pictograms that the Maulwerkers are asked to translate into their own practice. Bryan Eubanks will produce a small booklet for the human algorithm ‘The Permanent Computer’, which brings together different forms of notation that organise various sound/actions for independent or closely guided interaction. He shares with Hernández Guzmán a focus on radically analogue process forms, although their immersive audiovisual approach is also inspired by digital and multimedia experiences or human-machine interactions. The processual form - and this aspect links all the pieces in the programme - presents itself as a kind of dynamic interface between individual and collective actions.

An evening is created in which virtuoso vocal sounds, a sound-exploring approach to objects and instruments, as well as choreographic elements are projected into the space in a manner typical of the Maulwerkers, where they interpenetrate, network and unfold.