‘De kunst van delen’ is a project of the ‘Stichting Oase’, Jongeren Cultuurhuis Kanaleneiland and the ZIMIHC theater and the Grijze Koppen Orkest. These organisations are ‘culture houses’: places where people come together to be creative, make music, meet up and talk.
The goal of this project was about bringing elderly people together with young people through music.
Stichting Oase is a place where Hindustan elderly come together to practice their culture, sing songs together and have a good time together. The Jongeren Cultuurhuis Kanaleneiland is a place where young kids can record their raps in the studio and develop their artistic skills.
It was my job to create a performance with these two groups that have nothing in common.
Due to my interest in traditional Indian music I could connect with the elderly people and understand the way they are making music, which isn’t the same as how the young people are creating their artform (Hip-Hop & Urban culture).
My approach was to ‘sample’ and adopt both cultures and create a simple hybrid where both musical traditions can be presented.
In the end we created a performance with a beat that contained samples from the Hindustan music. As I speak Hip-Hop fluently and have a small understanding about the Hindustan tradition I could be a translator and bring these two groups together.
Project duration: A year, but I was involved 4 weeks before the performance date. There was no connection being made yet with these two groups.
Performance date: 12 apr 18