Requiem for a Car park

Car park Rustenburgh, Zaandam, 24 june 2006

The last rites for a location that is usually not considered worth considering. By blindfolding the audience, and bringing a fresh �perspective� to the normally bare, windy, even dismal place: the old car park to be pulled down. By experiencing the space only through listening.
The participants, 60 singers from all over the Zaan area supplemented by professional vocalists and percussionists were interspersed throughout the location: sometimes far away and sometimes close to the audience, who were seated on cushions on the ground. The composition was comprised of spatial sounds that sometimes became snatches of a melody (in which existing pieces of the music sung by the choirs could be recognised) and finally mounted in an exhilarating climax in which two rappers declaimed a text about the city in motion. The audience, who had in the meantime removed their blindfolds, was given an impromptu participation in the finale by being invited to sing along with the repeated patterns that supported the rap.
The project was rehearsed in one day with participants who had received no prior information on what was expected of them.

This event was the first in a series of performances, in which a great number of participants from the Zaan region will be involved as an upbeat to the musical theatrics project �Droomzomernacht� (Summernightdream) in June, 2007.