(musical)⁴

Radical Empathy:
A Continuous Score, Act 11:
The Musical

(2021)




In April 2021 a new online performance by P*D*A* premiered. The work was commissioned by Rønnebæksholm in collaboration with freelance curator Stine Hebert and launched on social-digital platforms.

To develop the new online performance P*D*A* has collaborated with the following artistic partners: Anna Carlsson (musical theater/musical song composition), Dinis Machado (choreography advisor), Sky Deep (soundtrack) and Inga Kolbrun Söring (stage/tech).

Taking its point of the departure in the musical genre, the new performance draws from the spirit of reform and education that defines Rønnebæksholm’s historical specificity, the serendipitous finding of singing collectively as a pedagogical strategy for raising awareness and formation of a collective identity.

The new performance works within conditions of instability that compound the restrictions on movement and isolation from others, the anxiety and fear of illness, as well as the nationalisms and racism that rallies around the virus. Act 11: The Musical comes from the need to share vulnerabilities and coping strategies while aiming to be a space of both refuge and action. Act 11: The Musical will rift on, borrow from, materialize, collage, and translate the social fabric around us during these precarious times. Woven in between narratives of personal reflections, institutional experiences, and public desires are ‘Public Service Announcements’. They serve as sonic beacons, urging vigilance when white supremacist powers and institutional violence amass in the wake of political instability fuelled by post truth politics, white fragility and entitlement during this raging pandemic.

Radical Empathy, A Continuous Score is an ongoing project that, with each act introduced, seeks to find new tools of action and awareness. How can the visual and performative literacy of art be shared and used collectively among artists, activists, researchers, and the general public to navigate the swiftly changing social and political climate?

A documentation of the performance can be viewed here!

⁴ Radical Empathy: A Continuous Score, Act 11: 
The Musical
 
The Musical is developed and commissioned by Kunsthal Rønnebæksholm in collaboration with freelance curator Stine Hebert. The work is part of Rønnebæksholm artistic program FællesRum supported by Det Obelske Familiefond and further support from the Danish Arts Foundation and Nordic Culture Point has enabled this new work.

Public* Display* of Actions*

Is an anti-fascist platform using performance and speech tactics from street and guerilla theater, agitprop, Speakers' Corners, and political assemblies, to initiate contexts for collective experience, demonstration, and dialogue insisting on vigilance and direct process as a dramaturgical method and approach. P*D*A* Is in its current manifestation excited by the potential of radical empathy as an imaginative prism. A prism creating a spectrum of possibilities to find new tools of action and awareness. How can the visual and performative literacy of art be shared and used collectively among artists, activists, researchers, and the general public to navigate the swiftly changing social and political climate?  

Kjell Camihna

MC Coble

Andreas Engman

Jeuno Kim