Buffalo Gals, Won’t You Come Out Tonight

Music theatre by Solistenensemble Kaleidoskop & Silvia Costa, Andrea Belfi, Wojtek Blecharz

Beauty and conflict between two worlds is at the centre of the new music theater production by Solistenensemble Kaleidoskop, “Buffalo Gals, Won't You Come Out Tonight”, based on Ursula K. Le Guin's eponymous utopian fable. This marks the first time that Director Silvia Costa and composers Andrea Belfi and Wojtek Blecharz have collaborated with the ensemble, as they jointly translate this tale about the meeting of different worlds into a visual and musical stage performance. Together, they explore how multi-perspectivity can create a new experience and a new sound.

Le Guin's “Buffalo Gals, Won't You Come Out Tonight” (1987) tells the story of a girl, Myra, who finds herself in the middle of a barren landscape with a wounded eye. A coyote comes to her rescue and takes her to a village full of talking animal presences. In a ceremonial ritual, her injured eye is replaced by that of a coyote, allowing her to perceive and understand both animals and humans. Fascinated and torn between these two worlds, a new experiential world emerges from the ambivalence and ambiguity of her position.

Director Silvia Costa develops a symbolic and pictorial language for the stage, interweaving visuality, text and music. Wojtek Blecharz’s compositions reflect his interest in the interplay between body and instrument; his abstract and haptic music comprises sounds that often integrate the musicians' gestures and movements. Percussionist, composer and experimental musician Andrea Belfi uses minimalist facets to create seemingly endless, energetic soundscapes to hypnotic effect. Over the course of the piece, the music of both composers entwines and overlaps to create a new sonic world.

The work of the Solistenensemble Kaleidoskop features projects of shared authorship that have been developed in collaboration with artists from other genres and cultural backgrounds. This practice thrives on the courage and ability to constantly subject their own processes to other perspectives, as reflected in Le Guin's story. This approach abandons traditional hierarchies in favour of collaboration and communication. As per usual for the ensemble, the musicians appear onstage as performers, alongside Minh Duc Pham, NicoNote and Minou Monfared, and are visible and audible with their bodies, voices and instruments.

Artists/Collaborators: Solistenensemble Kaleidoskop, Andrea Belfi, Minou Monfared, NicoNote, Minh Duc Pham (Performance und Musik), Silvia Costa (Regie und Bühne), Andrea Belfi , Wojtek Blecharz (Komposition), Boram Lie (Musikalische Dramaturgie), Davis Hart (Sound), Andrea Sanson (Lichtdesign), Cristina Nyffeler (Kostümdesign), Boram Lie, Volker Hormann (Künstlerische Leitung)

A production by Solistenensemble Kaleidoskop. Supported by the Capital Cultural Fund.

Solistenensemble Kaleidoskop will receive a grant for independent groups without their own venue from the Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion in 2024.

Media partnerships Radialsystem: The Berliner, Rausgegangen, tip Berlin, taz. die tageszeitung

Duration approx. 80 minutes

Next date:

• Date Friday, 19/July/2024 20:00 (2 more dates)
• Venue Radialsystem V
• Address Holzmarktstraße 33, 10243 Berlin-Friedrichshain