LITERATURE & SPOKEN WORD

I’m still beaming with happiness and looking forward to more

“Working with these wonderful artists was a journey into creative space and freedom within a highly inspiring concept. Ideas, reflections, writing words and music, storytelling, humor and poetry were able to flow at an incredibly easy pace. What luck to meet on such a beautiful and intense level of artistic creation and human encounter. And to be able to take the audience with you. I’m still beaming with happiness and looking forward to more.”

Every performance was new

“…this project was made into a gift for me. I also found the point “work in progress” relevant, and the three different venues always implied a première. In this sense, every performance was “new”, “fresh” and sometimes surprising at the moment. “

A special kind of literature and spoken word concert

The Soniq Kollektiv, Christina Fuchs, Ramesh Shotham and Jarry Singla, hosted performer and singer Sascha Ley and vocal artist Mitch Heinrich at Jaki (Stadtgarten Köln) for a special kind of literature and spoken word concert.
The starting point for the concert was Salman Rushdie’s new novel “Victory City”. Salman Rushdie has interwoven Indian mythology and history in his books, starting with his debut novel “Midnight Children”. With his special brand of magical realism, he always takes a critical look at existing political and social conditions. Despite the threat posed by the fatwa issued by Iranian religious leader Ayatolla Khomeini, he has always fought courageously for the freedom of the word. Rushdie’s recent work, “Victory City”, combines the story of Vijayanagara, also known as Hampi, with the mythology of the goddess Pampaa Devi. In a fantastical setting, he uses colourful storytelling to deal with real issues such as the abuse of power, the rise and fall of a great power and the role of patriarchy.

Inspired by Rushdie’s colourful narrative art, the Soniq Collective conceived a concert evening that had something of a modern radio play, spoken word performance, music and poetry and vocal art meeting instrumental art, just as Rushdie uses history and mythology as a foil and deals with them freely, Luxembourg’s Sascha Ley and Mitch Heinrich from Wuppertal dealt with the text in an extremely imaginative way. Sascha Ley recounted personal experiences from India, passages from the text and excerpts from mythology in marvellous (English) language.

From time to time she also sang, sometimes sounding like an Indian singer and at other times like an English singer/songwriter. Mitch Heinrich accompanied this with vocal artistry, either non-verbal singing and noises or word twists such as the witty corruption of bird names, all this with sometimes breathtaking speed and wild gestures and facial expressions. Also remarkable was a call and response by Mitch with Ramesh Shotham, in which Ramesh recited the South Indian drum language and Mitch skated in response, all in the right rhythm.

All the text fragments, vocalisations and sounds were masterfully integrated into the music of the Soniq collective. Even without understanding a word of the lyrics, the combination of words and music functioned as great sound art, a true synthesis of words and music. The instrumental qualities of the Soniq collective were once again very clear. Christina Fuchs played the saxophone and clarinet wonderfully, Ramesh Shotham showed himself as always to be a master of percussion and Jarry Singla is not only a sensitive pianist but also operated a harmonium.

Soniq has played many great concerts in the past with very different themes and guests, from Norwegian folklore, Indian dance and free expression dance to Moroccan Gnawa singers. But the Literature and Spoken Word programme was certainly one of the best.

Music that floats, grooves and then again strikes – a fantastic sound journey

“India, a continent full of contrasts, colors, people and a rich mythology, can captivate and fascinate people, but also overwhelm them. The music collective Soniq invited actress, singer and performer Sascha Ley and sound poet Mitch Heinrich as guests to the Marienkirche for a fascinating musical journey based on motifs from Salman Rushdie’s fantastic mythological novel “Victory City”.
The multi-layered tale tells the story of the orphan girl “Pampa Kampana”, who is chosen by a goddess as a human shell and mouthpiece. She creates Bisnaga-Victory City, the wonder of the world, from a few seeds. Her ambition is to give women an equal role in a patriarchal world. But the years pass, rulers come and go, battles are won and lost. As her life is interwoven with the city, its tragic fall also means her end.

Before the actual story begins, “Soniq”, consisting of Christina Fuchs (saxophone [and clarinets]), Jarry Singla (piano and harmonium) and percussionist Ramesh Shotham, and the two guests improvise the impressions of a first visit to India. The music ranges from quiet, meditative to cacophonic passages full of street noise and beggars’ cries. Indian rhythms, onomatopoeic chanting. A sustained saxophone between free jazz improvisations and classical Indian drum rhythms give a foretaste of what is to follow.

Soniq brings the jungle to life with its bird calls, surers through labor, birth and death. Power and abuse of power. The rise and self-inflicted fall of an empire and the change from a matriarchal to a patriarchal world provide the material for the sound images – they are always surprising, fascinating, familiar and strange at the same time, sometimes even painful.
The music floats and grooves, makes a utopia sound and then strikes wounds again. At the finale when Heinrich raps, roars and snorts the present into the church with scraps of language, it is clear that the story of the decline of “Victory City” is closer to the present than many would like.”