Percussion in the Playground = Playing with Percussion

During our September meeting with children at the Royal Łazienki Park’s playground, we will go back to the earliest beginnings of music. The percussionists will play on constructions normally meant for children’s play. In this way, they will imitate the very first musicians, who made music on objects from their everyday lives. It is also meant to be a wonderful game of imagination, focusing on creative thinking and stimulating acoustic sensitivity.

The children will be transported into a reality in which sounds are produced by apparently ordinary and familiar objects turning into genuine musical instruments. They will realise that a slide can sound like a gong; the ladders can turn into a xylophone, and the swing – into the conductor’s podium. During this unusual performance, the members of Hob-beats Percussion Group will teach children how to produce sound with e.g. sand, and invite everyone (including parents) to make music together. Rhythm has an immense power, and experiencing rhythm can bring great satisfaction. The artists will attempt to share the secrets of trance and musical unity with their audience. Participants will enjoy a performance of the artists’ own spatial version of Steve Reich’s Music for Pieces of Wood, share the experiences of a percussionist who follows a conductor in Thierry De Mey’s Silence Must Be!, and admire the musicians’ improvising skills and rhythmic precision in Royal Bathroom – a piece written specially for this occasion.

The whole event is rooted in instrumental theatre, which symbolises the synthesis of all arts without which contemporary art would simply not exist. The percussionists will introduce their young audience to this extraordinary world and prove it can be attractive also for children. We may even witness the birth of a new trend: instrumental theatre for a children’s audience.

Miłosz Pękala