Eastern Daze #54 with Symposium Musicum

Symposium Musicum is an attempt at intercultural dialogue. It was released as an LP by mappa in May 2023, but it should also be seen as a tool for creating conditions for a Slovak-Romani encounter. We want this podcast to play a similar role.

In fact, it's a performative experiment in which the sound creates a potential for dialogue through the process of listening. Symposium Musicum emerged from the 2019 edition of the UM UM community festival of contemporary theatre and art, unique in this region and a source of inspiration for new artistic projects to come.

These ideas of community and activism framed the Symposium Musicum experiment in the activation of a process aimed at opening spaces of interaction between local communities, ethnic groups and artists. Based on the ephemeral act of listening (whether technologically mediated by a microphone or not), an extended space was created and relationships multiplied. Symposium Musicum did not aim to produce relationships, but to make them possible. Symposium Musicum became a critical and resistant shared environment in which it was possible to experiment with strategies of adaptation, to train a nomadic sensibility and to incorporate differences.

In this podcast for Easterndaze, we reflect on the process, sharing material from the LP as well as unreleased recordings.

Featuring: Marika Smrekova, Anna Khvyl, Hamed Mundi, Elia Moretti, John-Robin Bold and Hannah Cobb.

Credits:

Concept – Marika Smrekova and Elia Moretti

Field recording and composition – John-Robin Bold, Anna Khvyl, Elia Moretti

Originally created for UM UM – Community Festival of Contemporary Theatre and Art www.umumfestival.com

Released by mappa in 2023 as MAP030