Commission to François Sarhan

Walls can make people what they are. The separation they bring changes lives for the worse, but sometimes also for the better. For United Instruments of Lucilin, François Sarhan is composing a new piece of music theatre entitled les murs meurent aussi (translated: “the walls die too”). The project aims to explore how these simple lines – straight or crooked, acoustic or hallucinated – affect people. Borders also have something to do with demarcation, an important concept in today’s Western world. Our boundaries make us who we are and keep us healthy as long as we respect them, according to the therapeutic narrative. The piece will explore what borders and boundaries have in common – where they make us and where they destroy and divide us.

The ongoing brutal war in Ukraine is the starting point for the work. The intense and ubiquitous media coverage, propaganda and geopolitical analysis surrounding this war and the others that have started since make it difficult to discern what is real, leaving us seemingly informed but powerless. Rather than expressing a political agenda, this project uses testimonies and biographical material to reflect the impressions and visions of those affected by the war and the violence of the walls. In video re-enactments and live scenes, the stories that emerge at the borders are revealed without attempting to sentimentalize or generalise. The performance is a musical exploration of the power of borders, a grotesque tour de force into the heart of identities shaped by violence.

The Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation supports the commission to François Sarhan for his music theatre les murs meurent aussi.

Further information:
lucilin.lu

Dates

September 20 & 21, 2024
Festival Musica, Strasbourg

February 7, 2025
ECLAT Festival, Stuttgart