Elaine Mitchener: Eight Songs for a Mad King
- Radialsystem V
- Music theatre
25.11.2023 / 20:00 – 22:00
With Elaine Mitchener
Peter Maxwell Davies’ iconic 1968 piece of music theatre “Eight Songs for a Mad King” addresses the relationship between madness and power. The work centres around the psychic disintegration of the British monarch George III and the simultaneous moral disintegration of colonial power. Elaine Mitchener’s staging and interpretation of “Eight Songs for a Mad King” can also be read as a meta-narrative about the culture industry and its perpetuation of postcolonial violence; in particular, in relation to the absence of non-white female bodies and voices and their non-representation within a European canon of classical and contemporary music.
Cast
Curator and performance: Elaine Mitchener
Musical director: Sarah Saviet
Choreography and lighting: Dam Van Huynh
Violin: Sarah Saviet
Clarinet: Michiko Ogawa
Piano: Joseph Houston
Flute: Rebecca Lenton
Cello: Marie Schmit
Drums: Rie Miyama Watanabe
Radialsystem V, Holzmarktstr. 33, 10243 Berlin
supported by DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program
Photo: Dimitri Djuric
