My (German) Concert

International project in cooperation with Freiburg Stadt Theater

For many years I have been asking myself, what for heaven’s sake could have been the music that the Der Rattenfänger von Hameln played to the rats and the children, which made them follow him, to their death. 
I didn't find an answer.

This project is based on devotion to music. But also and especially to understanding the context in which it is created, and the consequences of that devotion to pure music. Does it have its own “blind spots”? The art of music is abstract, but what happens when it is not accepted? It might become the ultimate noise, and the response to noise is aggression and violence, a chaos one is afraid of, one wishes to demolish.
The starting point of the process was Wagner's article: Judenthum in der Musik, 1850. 
In this article Wagner claims that the cultural roots of Judaism are loud - prayers, mutterings, shofar cheers. According to him, any attempt to create music from this cultural root will end in noise and not in musical harmony, and if the artist is striving to achieve harmonious music, following the influence of Christian music, in order to be accepted in European society, he has to disconnect from his environment, from his context, which leaves him with no cultural roots at all. 
Wagner knew Jews, they were the "other" for him, the "other" living in German society. But in a contemporary reading of the article, when we relax from the anger and the disgust - it actually reveals the situation of the exiled artist, the immigrant or the refugee. Between east and west.
Following this article, I went on a journey and research, and I invited my partners to join me - a group of artists from different cultural roots, speaking different languages. All of them, in one form or another, are in the status of a migrant exile or refugee.
We examined the development of music from the 19th century until today, East and West, through its acceptance by society, and through the often prejudiced attitude towards the music of "others"- the colonialist or orientalist approach.
This project is not a concert. It is theater that uses the written word and sound to tell a story and to raise relevant issues, with a combination of irony and personal stories. 
Sources of inspiration: new writing, Wagner's essay, Nietzsche's answers to Wagner, Karl Zuckmayer, and a new adaptation of Franz Kafka's short stories.

For many years I have been asking myself, what kind of music did Der Rattenfänger von Hameln play for the rats and the children, that made them follow him, to their death.
I still don`t have an answer.  Maybe there is no answer, and maybe the answer is hidden in the noise. In this theatrical piece you will certainly hear a lot of it.

Ofira Henig