Memorial of Rebellion

Tickets £10 // Under 30s £5
Advance booking required

Brigitta Muntendorf (Germany, 1982) & Michael Höppner (Germany, 1982)
Memorial of Rebellion (2020) 19′ UK Premiere

Songs of Rebellion is dead. One of many large-scale projects killed off by the instant impact of COVID-19, Brigitta Muntendorf and Michael Höppner were able to give the piece a brief but incredible run as a full ensemble work. An ambitious homage to protest songs, as well as an examination of their current place in the world, the work allowed its audience to get closer to Muntendorf and Höppner’s ideas. As their ensemble wove its way through fragmented sounds and references to popular standards, the audience moved through the performance space, joining the musicians in an aquarium tank of political uprising and community action to experience the power of protest – as well as the vulnerable space it comes from.

Now, there is enforced social distance. Songs of Rebellion can no longer be experienced as the simultaneous journey it once was; it is no longer a ritual itself, a lived-in example of how people organise towards a common purpose. In its place, Muntendorf and Höppner have created Memorial of Rebellion, an audiovisual installation that remembers, and honours, its source material, inviting the listener to ruminate on the personal protests of their life. Where Songs offered a vast, open space for listeners to coalesce in, Memorial is all insulation, a ‘memory-trail’ experienced on headphones. Memorial of Rebellion continues to contemplate calls to action throughout the world, and the place of protest song in both popular and community-driven music.

Co-commissioned and co-produced by November Music, Ultima and hcmf// 

Memorial of Rebellion is part of the Sounds Now project co-funded by the European Union’s Creative Europe Programme