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Some musical fun to be had

Monday, July 7th, 2008

ITs Festival

foto: Sigrid C. Degener/ITs Festival

During Imploding Fictions’ trip to Amsterdam where we performed Hamletmachine as part of the ITs Festival, we also participated in the INSTED @ ITs program. INSTED is an international network for young theatre directors (www.insted.eu) and Pip and I have taken on the responsibility for being INSTED’s London representatives.

The ITs or International Theatreschool Festival (www.itsfestival.nl) is a large festival presenting final work by graduating theatremakers from Belgium, the Netherlands and elsewhere. As a side program to ITs 08, INSTED invited 20 young international and 20 young Dutch theatremakers, and arranged a week of workshops, talks, networking and parties. I participated in what was called the Music Theatre Workshop (replacing the original opera workshop). This was not a workshop on how to direct musicals as one might think, but rather a series of laboratory sessions of theatre-making, focusing on how music could play an essential part in making theatre, enhancing or adding something new to a moment of theatre and also become central in the telling of a story on stage.

INSTED @ ITs

The workshop was consummately and engagingly lead by Thomas Spijkerman and Wilko Sterke, two young musicians and theatremakers (both young gentlemen with an impeccable sense of retro style – looking just as if they were extras in an Austin Powers movie), and we were six young directors participating. Over the course of the four days the workshop went on for, we explored the function music could have in a number of different ways: With pre-recorded music, with live music performed beautifully by Thomas and Wilko, with live music performed not necessarily always as beautifully by the rest of us, with musical- or cabaret-style singing characters, with music naturalistically woven into the scene (a character listening to music in the scene f.ex.), as background music/muzac, Hollywood style emotional underlining, abstracted sound-scenarios and as pure, unadulterated, loud, riotous, riveting, raucous, noise!

Highlight of the week: Øystein during the showing for the rest of the INSTED crowd on the last day, hammering madly on a bass guitar (I can’t play one for shit, but I can make lots of sound with it), being so encaptured – no, entranced – in the industrial, deafening, cacophonic, earpiercing soundblast, he doesn’t realize the scene is over ages ago and everyone is shouting for him to stop…

Hell yeah, give me some LOUDNESS!

(Dear Pinter; this might be the first and only time in history that one of your short playlets have been given the deaf-metal treatment. Though it was good, I’m pretty sure you don’t need worry about it happening again.)

Conclusion: If you ever come across Thomas Spijkerman or Wilko Sterke, don’t shy away. I guarantee there’s some musical fun to be had, some exciting experiments to be made and lots to learn!

Next year: Give me a drumkit. Ooohhh yeah.

ITs Festival