Ulrike Haage, Veronika Bachfischer, Klaudia Ruschkowski
ETEL ADNAN: THERE. HIER / DORT
Literary musical performance
‘There’ is a prose poem by Lebanese-American poet, philosopher, and painter Etel Adnan (1925 – 2021). Written in 1997, during the Yugoslav Wars, it deals with conflict between individuals, societies, and genders: “If you have an enemy, and you are obsessed by it, that enemy will occupy your head. They become you. That is a difficult situation. There are victories in history that are worse than defeats.” Musician and composer Ulrike Haage transforms Etel Adnan’s poem into an open musical-tonal fabric in the here and now of thinking and speaking, live ‘at, in, and under’ the grand piano and in dialogue with an actress.
In the setting of the first comprehensive monographic exhibition in Germany on Etel Adnan’s work, at Kunstsammlung NRW.
There. Hier/There is funded by the Kunststiftung NRW and, as part of the Alliance of International Production Houses, by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media. With the kind support of C. Bechstein Centrum Düsseldorf.