Fresh A.I.R. #5 Exhibition

I AM SEVERAL / Ik ben een aantal is the result of a six-month residency period at Fresh AIR Berlin. It is an audio installation + performance with three dancers (Hannah Ackerman, Ariel Hayun and Axier Iriarte), made in collaboration with choreographer Merel Franx. The performance has taken place from the 17th – 19th September, 2021 at the Bülowstrasse 90, 10783 in Schöneberg, Berlin. A registration of the performance with sound is now on view in the exhibition until October 31st. More information you’ll find on the website of Urban Nation / Fresh AIR.  

I AM SEVERAL is an electronic music piece leading up to a contemporary dance performance, using a polyphony of voices. It is about the different people we can be, pluriformity versus surrender, the individual versus the group. Inspired by choir music, it combines sound and movement to create a certain unity, an ensemble of people in which each individual’s autonomy can be reflected. This project is about finding ones voice, about being autonomous and the loneliness this can bring forth, but also about ways in which we are so elementary alike. Made in collaboration with choreographer Merel Franx.

The old bucket has hung there through many autumns, and the leaves have fallen around it and some have fallen into it. Rain and snow have fallen into it, and the fallen leaves have held the moisture and so have rotted. Nuts have fallen into it, or been carried into it by squirrels; mice and squirrels have eaten the meat of the nuts and left the shells; they and other animals have left their droppings; insects have flown into the bucket and died and decayed; birds have scratched in it and left their droppings and perhaps a feather or two. This slow work of growth and death, gravity and decay, which is the chief work of the world, has by now produced in the bottom of the bucket several inches of black humus. I look into that bucket with fascination because I am a farmer of sorts and an artist of sorts, and I recognize there an artistry and a farming far superior to mine, or to that of any human.
– Wendell Berry

Concept and music: Marjolein van der Meer
Choreography: Merel Franx
Dancers: Ariel Hayun, Hannah Ackerman and Axier Iriarte.
Thanks to: Stiftung Berliner Leben, SoAP Maastricht, the technical team of Stiftung Berliner Leben, Sanne van Rijn, Ruth Benschop, Bart van den Eynde, Anne de Loos, Beatrijs Dikker, Malu Peeters, Raymond Deirkauf, Timo Tembuyser, Tanja Elstgeest, Leonie Clement, Joanna Simson and all co-residents. 

ABA Air Salon

«ABA» Air SALON: “I AM SEVERAL” – Marjolein van der Meer Tuesday, 20. Jul 2021, 16:00 to 17:00 Hr

Marjolein van der Meer during performance „Birth Days“ / concept & choreography by Remy Ugarte Vallejos / ABA WON #8, HdS, Berlin, 2021
Credits: Aleksander Komarov

#IAMSEVERAL #IKBENEENAANTAL #FRESHAIRBERLIN #ABA #MUSIC #PERFORMANCE #MARJOLEINVDMEER #MERELFRANX #STIFTUNGBERLINERLEBEN #URBANNATION

Broadcasted through Colaboradio via Freies Radio Berlin/Brandenburg (88,4 MHz in Berlin 90,7 MHz in Potsdam)

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In this one hour radio piece, Marjolein vd Meer takes you on a journey through inspirations and explorations around her latest project ‘I am several’ which she is currently realizing at Fresh A.I.R. Berlin. This hour will include choir pieces, hiphop and some of her own musical and textual experiments.

Marjolein van der Meer (The Netherlands, 1986) is a spoken word artist, a singer and musician, performer and director of performance. Loosely combining music, image and text she creates multi-layered songs, concepts and performances, soundscapes and audio pieces that reveal her way of looking at the world. Her work is playful and combines the abstract with daily life, trying to reach beyond the surface through building structures of language and music, using the subconscious, poetry and movement. Together with musician Raymond Deirkauf, Marjolein has an electronic music duo called “I, poor romantic”. The duo released their first single “Cool, oh no Cool” in 2017 and an EP based on Grimm fairy tales in 2019. Grimm toured extensively through theaters in The Netherlands and Belgium. Marjolein van der Meer previously created performances for Frascati and de Brakke Grond in Amsterdam, NL. Her audio documentaries were broadcast on the Dutch national radio (Hollanddoc) and online through national newspaper NRC.

I AM SEVERAL is an electronic music piece leading up to a performance, using a polyphony of voices, from the inside and out, to address diversity. It is about the different people we can be, pluriformity versus surrender, the individual versus the group. The piece uses everyday situations, sounds and movement to create a certain unity, a choir of people in which each individual’s autonomy can be reflected. This project is about finding ones voice, about being autonomous and the loneliness this can bring forth, but also about ways in which we are so elementary alike. Made in collaboration with choreographer Merel Franx.

ABA Air SALON is a radio format produced by Air Berlin Alexanderplatz, a Berlin based artist initiative dealing with the distribution and documentation of forms of collective and experimental knowledge production. The broadcasts come from different locations in Berlin where we organize salons. At these salons we meet with local actors, artists, scientists and other cultural producers to exchange around research based artistic projects and practices. You can find more information about our program at http://www.airberlinalexanderplatz.de

ABA (Air Berlin Alexanderplatz) e.V., is a research-oriented artists’ initiative founded in Berlin in 2009 by the artists Susanne Kriemann & Aleksander Komarov. The programme focuses on ephemeral artistic research and collective and experimental knowledge production. ABA’s operations consist of the conception, curation and implementation of various presentational formats: The organization of salons in different locations acros the city, the release of publications, the stewardship of a residency-program and the maintenance of a website as a central place for documentation and achivation of these forms of ephmeral knowledge production.

88,4 MHz – CoLaboRadio

IK BEN EEN AANTAL / I AM SEVERAL

I AM SEVERAL is an electronic music piece leading up to a performance, using a polyphony of voices, from the inside and out, to address diversity. It is about the different people we can be, pluriformity versus surrender, the individual versus the group. The piece uses everyday situations, sounds and movement to create a certain unity, a choir of people in which each individual’s autonomy can be reflected. This project is about finding ones voice, about being autonomous and the loneliness this can bring forth, but also about ways in which we are so elementary alike. Made in collaboration with choreographer Merel Franx.

Onmogelijke Pose

Elisabet Stienstra Acephalic
Elisabet Stienstra – Acephalic

Bekijk op Youtube

Geïnspireerd door het beeld van Elisabet Stienstra >> ‘Acephalic’

Een mantra over vrouw – zijn. Over hard en zacht zijn. Over kwetsbaar zijn en feminist. Over zintuiglijkheid en je ‘hoofd’ verliezen.

Raymond Deirkauf heeft het nummer geproduceerd. Hij is verantwoordelijk voor de synths, de drums, de airy sound.

Dank aan
@evitaativeevita 💕

#onmogelijkepose#francesfriggaostara#raymonddeirkauf#FFO#elisabetstienstra#acephalic#artrocks#competitie#popsport

EP RELEASE

I, poor romantic brengt de Grimm EP uit. Kom naar de release op 6 oktober in Salon Ruigoord.

You are warmly invited to the EP release on the 6th of October in de salon Ruigoord.

Thanks to Productiehuis Theater Rotterdam, Czeslaw de Wijs, Lilias Buchanan, Tom van der Borght, Celina Yavelow, Jasper Tempel and all of you who contributed through Voordekunst.

Over de EP

Marjolein van der Meer en Raymond Deirkauf brengen de vertellingen van Grimm in hun meest oorspronkelijke versie in een spel van taal en transformatie, op electronische muziek. Mooie prinsessen en pratende kikkers, maar ook rondvliegende lichaamsdelen, letterkundige kronkels en buitensporige jaloezie. Bij Theater Rotterdam maakten we een voorstelling en nu brengen we de muziek uit, digitaal én op vinyl. Bovendien presenteren we de plaat graag aan het publiek op een bijzondere plek, namelijk Salon Ruigoord, net buiten Amsterdam, een sprookjesachtig glazen huis tussen het groen.

Op de EP staan vier nummers, muzikale bewerkingen van ‘Juniper Tree’, ‘The White Snake’, ‘Cat & Mouse’ (compilatie) en ‘Rapunzel’. De teksten komen in een boekje bij de EP. Het is een eenmalige uitgave van 150 exemplaren.

Over I, poor romantic

Marjolein studeerde woordkunst aan het Koninklijk Conservatorium van Antwerpen. Ze brengt poëzie, onconventionele teksten en verhalen op muziek, in een heel eigen combinatie van zang en vertelling. Raymond Deirkauf is kunstenaar en gefascineerd door elektrotechniek. In zijn muziek plaatst hij speelse, dromerige beats op een donkere achtergrond. Voor Grimm legde hij een archief aan van authentieke geluiden uit de experimentele scene van de jaren ’20, ’70 en ’80, die hij mixt met hedendaagse elektronica.

De muziek van I, poor romantic is donker en melancholisch met een speelse boventoon. Beluister de vorige single Cool, oh no Cool via Soundcloud.

Afgemixed door Chris Hamilton.