Hotel Pro Forma and Latvian Radio Choir continue the award-winning collaboration in a new visual music performance. NeoArctic combines performance theatre, chamber choir, litterature, electronica and classical music to thematize the global climate crisis.
The first cruise ship has already left on its journey via the North West Passage. The rest of us will soon follow as the eco-tourists of the New World, loaded with equipment to record nature’s won- ders and to map geo logical, biological and climatic changes. Nature’s Titanic is well under way.
We have entered the Anthropocene, a new geological age defined by human disturbance of the eco-system to an unprecedented extent. Humanity has become a ‘natural force’, causing rapid, violent changes to the planet. The diversity in scale and nature of the highly dynamic changes the planet is undergoing is vast: Climate changes, soil erosion, urbanisation, digitalisation of all areas of life, a loss of biological species, etc. all characterise the new age.
This is the complex point of departure for NeoArctic. Based on thorough research and artistic developmental work, the performance is a disturbingly beautiful journey into the age of the Anthropocene.
Kirsten Dehlholm is the founder of Hotel Pro Forma (1985-). With a background in the visual arts Kirsten Dehlholm works with performance art, opera, theatre, and exhibitions. Her work includes concept and direction for Hotel Pro Forma as well as directing for opera houses and theatres internationally. In June 2015 she directed three Rachmaninov operas for La Monnaie in Brussels with great success. She has won many prestigious awards.
Kaspars Putnins is a steady supporter of new vocal music that for his choir means performing challenging music of new musical language and expression. He is the artistic co-director and conductor of the Latvian Radio Choir since 1992. He is a regular guest conductor with the BBC Singers, NDR Kammerchor, Netherlands Chamber Choir and others.
Founded in 1940, the Latvian Radio Choir ranks among the top professional chamber choirs in Europe. Their vast repertoire ranges from early Renaissance music to complex works of contemporary music. The choir is the creator of a new choral paradigm: Every singer is a distinct individual with his or her own voice signature and role in performances. LRC travels around the world to give concerts among others at Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Cité de la Musique in Paris and Lincoln Center in New York.
Sjón is a celebrated Icelandic novelist. He won the Nordic Council’s Literary Prize for his novel The Blue Fox (the equivalent of the Man Booker Prize) and the novel From The Mouth Of The Whale was shortlisted for both the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize.