New Lines

Based on the motto “On the Way”, the Munich Biennial – Festival for New Music Theatre 2024 explores the diverse transformations occurring in society, and in so doing, reveals social and geographic shifts and develops new ideas regarding urban infrastructure. What does sustainable mobility mean for urban environments of the future? What kind of vehicles, traffic networks, rhythms and quiet havens will be required? What can contemporary music theatre contribute to inventing and formulating new lines (of thought) for practical mobility? To address these questions, the Munich Biennial has developed the project “New Lines” to which it has invited three independent music theatre companies from the Netherlands (Het Geluid), Finland (Oblivia) and Germany (Novoflot) along with international composers such as Yiran Zhao, Du Yun, Ted Hearns and Tamara Miller, to present their proposals for an artistic infrastructural transformation.

The performers of Oblivia will explore ideas on mobility in urban spaces together with their audience at the HP8 library in Munich. Het Geluid is teaming up with designers and the Bartlett School of Architecture (London) to create an AI-controlled “soundmobile” (a.k.a. “the soundbeast”) which will move autonomously through town, communicate with musicians, choirs and occasional passers-by, and recharge with sound. Novoflot will open a station for never-before-seen modes of transportation and celebrate the dawn of a new age in modern urban public transportation. All three music theatre events are freely accessible and encourage joint debate and discussion.

Following the festival, the individual projects will go on tour to Chur (Switzerland), Groningen and Herleen (Netherlands) and Berlin.

Artistic directors: Daniel Ott & Manos Tsangaris (artistic director of the Munich Biennale – Festival of New Music Theatre), Annika Tudeer, Gable & Romy Roelofsen, Sven Holm (artistic directors of individual projects)
Composers: Yiran Zhao, Ted Hearne, Tamara Miller, Du Yun
Artist groups: OBLIVIA, HET GELUIG, NOVOFLOT, Ensemble Ö, auditivVokal and others

Music theatre performances: Bibliothek Gasteig HP 8, Max-Joseph-Platz and other public venues, Munich: 5 – 9 Jun. 2024