Tomorrow’s Child

Line Tjørnhøj - Tomorrow’s ChildJill Sigman - Hut #9

January - February 2014

Tomorrow’s Child by Line Tjørnhøj

Tomorrow’s Child is an opera, interactive sound art and an activist installation art by choreographer Jill Sigman(US), and composer Line Tjørnhøj(DK).

Tomorrow’s ChildThe children nobody wants, cast-off people in need of a shelter. These are the inspiration for the new composition by Line Tjørnhøj: Tomorrow’s Child. Like the people, the composition also needs a place to stay, to be heard and seen. With Hut #9 Jill Sigman teams up with composer Line Tjørnhøj to create a hut out of electronic waste as a site for the performances of Tomorrow’s Child. The cast-off elec-tronics used in the hut hold much information, narratives that are silent and inaccessible, and they mirror the cast-off children in the music.

The performance will be a combination of electronic soundscape, song, cellist performance and artistic performance with a go-pro camera streaming from outside the stage.

Biography - Line Tjørnhøj

The voice occupies a central position in Line Tjørnhøj’s compositions in general. She exploits it in a conceptually operatic framework, in staged concerts, vox:dox and multimedia performances. Her acous-tic universe is free and intuitive and her works are situated in the sounds and stories that surround her. Line Tjørnhøj’s compositions are all part of a larger picture, different glimpses of the same collage. She insists that all the elements in a performance are inseparable: the notes, the choreography and the lighting belong to the work as a whole.

The works and their storiesTjørnhøj deal with timeless problems and emotions via stories from our own time. She is well known for dealing with cruel subjects where men and women are challenged to the utmost as a conse-quence of the misuse of power in its various forms. She exploits the soothing quality and beauty of the voice to establish a space for the impossible and painful stories she has narrated in the course of her career as a composer.

BackgroundLine Tjørnhøj (b. 1960) studied composition at the The Royal Academy of Music in Aarhus, where she was taught by Simon Steen-Andersen and others. Her musical inheritance is unique and her contribution to the auditive sound world can be recognized from far off. As a youth she was apprenticed as a sailor and travelled round the world. Later she worked as a nurse. She wrote her first music at the age of 35 and since then her compositions have been acclaimed by critics and audiences.

Prizes and honoursAnorexia Sacra won the competition for the best chamber opera at the American Opera Vista Festival in 2009.In 2010 the music committee of the Danish Arts Foundation awarded Line Tjørnhøj its three-year working grant for a classical composer.In 2013 Tjørnhøj received a grant from Danish Composers’ Society.http://www.linetjornhoj.dk

Hut #9 by Jill Sigman

Hut #9 is part of The Hut Project, a series of site-specific structures made by New York based artist/choreographer Jill Sigman from found and re-purposed materials (trash). Sigman has been building huts in different cities since 2009. In this case, Hut #9 was commissioned as a home for the opera Tomor-row’s Child; it is built predominantly from electronic waste collect-ed in Aarhus. The structure of each hut is determined by the waste collected on and around the site.

Sigman’s huts raise questions about sustainability, shelter, real estate, and home. Dwelling, sculpture, stage, and “emergency preparedness kit” meet in these liminal spaces where guests are invited to re-imagine their relations to objects and the planet. The next hut is planned for The Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Florida (USA) and a book about The Hut Project is currently under-way with Wesleyan University Press.

Biography

Jill Sigman (artist/choreographer) asks questions through the manipulation of body and materials. Trained in classical ballet, modern dance, art history, and analytic philosophy, Sigman has been making dances and performance installations since the early 90s. Based in New York City, she is Artistic Director of jill sigman/thinkdance which she founded in 1998, the same year she re-ceived her Ph.D. in philosophy from Princeton University. Sigman has been a Fellow at the Center for Creative Research at NYU, a Creative Campus Fellow at Wesleyan University, a Choreographic Fellow at the Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography, a Movement Research Artist in Residence, a Resident at the Acadia Summer Art Program, an Artist at the Guapamacátaro Interdisci-plinary Residency in Art and Ecology in Mexico, and a Fellow of the Kri Foundation in New Delhi, and her work has received support from numerous US national cultural funders and artistic institu-tions. Over time, Sigman’s work in dance has evolved to include the choreography of audience experience, found materials, and perception.

For more information:http://www.thinkdance.org

Tomorrow´s ChildOpera Performance

Coffee song: “Welkin, well – Hell seem´s to be on earth. Drinking coffee, mmm heavenly. One should not be afraid of death”

Aria: (Freely after Ray Bradbury: “Tomorrow´s Child):“Man kan ikke dræbe mennesket”. Barnet påvirkedes på en eller anden måde. I selve fødselsøjeblikket - det blev i en anden dimension. Kendsgerningen er at det er et barn. Det er varmt – det græder – trækker vejret. Barnet lever – er i en anden dimension! Det er sundt og lykkeligt”

Recitativa* UN Childrens Convention* Children in the Frontline (techtrash children)* Meet Sweetie ( a computer-generated 10 year old Filipino girl. Designed to catch online predators)* Born of Hate (about children - now grown ups, from warraped women in Bosnia)

Tomorrows Child: Performance on Cello

Angel: Go Pro performance ”Angel! How come you chose me? Angel! Close to my heart. Angel! Ease my heartache. Angel! Dont leave me tonight”.

Additional on screens: ”Sailor song” – Performed by Zoe Martlew, Film by Jürgen Diemer”Tone” – Performed by Zoe Martlew. Film by Jürgen Diemer”Go Pro´s – binaural displacements”: Performed by Elisabeth Færøy Lund

Tea is served in Hut #9

The Recitative - Tomorrow’s Child

Rape as a Weapon of War and it’s Long-term. Effects on Victims and Society

7th Global Conference - Violence and the Contexts of Hostility

I am now 18 and I have left my conflict zone orphanage, which is flooded with ´rape babies`. I have little education, money or sup-port. I am prone to abuse, poverty and homelessness. I carry the burden of my traumatic conception and my mother’s pain with me. I am guilty and see myself as a source of misery, a mistake, - tainted. As I am genetically connected to my rapist father I am evil and am predisposed to violence. I face endless struggles of identity and social hurdles.

I am the damage, the consequence – the child.I am part of a hidden population as in the eyes of the law do not exist. I have no birth certificate and no family.My country has less chance of a solid and stable political future because of me!

I will marry another child born of hate Rape is now my ´ weapon of choice`.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child,

Often referred to as CRC or UNCRC, is an international convention setting out the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of children.

Article 37. States Parties shall ensure that:No child shall be subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman or

degrading treatment or punishment. Neither capital punishment nor life imprisonment without possibility of release shall be im-posed for offences committed by persons below 18 years of age;

Nations that ratify this international convention are bound to it by international law.

Basic Principles of the Convention: 1. The child must be given the means requisite for its normal de-velopment, both materially and spiritually.

2. The child that is hungry must be fed, the child that is sick must be nursed, the orphan and must be sheltered.

3. The child must be the first to receive relief in times of distress.

4. The child must be protected against every form of exploitation.

Meet Sweetie - Worldnews.nbcnews.com – 5-11-13

Meet Sweetie — a computer-generated 10-year-old Filipino girl.“Everyday I have to sit in front of the webcam and talk to men just like tens of thousands of other kids. The men ask me to take off my clothes. They undress. They play with themselves. They want me to play with myself. As soon as I go online they come to me. … But what they don’t know, I’m not real. “

Sweetie was created by a Dutch charity to flush out online child abusers across the globe. Researchers say Sweetie was “swamped” daily by thousands of men looking for contact with her through webcams and willing to pay for it.

Thanks to: Averhoff a/s, Genbrugstationen Brabrand, Erix, Aarhus Folkekøk-ken, Aarhus Litteraturcenter, Aarhus Billedkunstcenter og Aarhus Scenekunstcenter.

Partners:Women’s Museum (work development, Aarhus)The Royal Academy of Music, Henrik Winther Hansen: Sound and binaural techniquesSNYK - www.snyk.dkEdition*S - www.edition-s.dk

Tomorrow’s Child is supported by:Aarhus Municipality’s Cultural Development, Open Stage – GodsbanenNordic Culture Point’s Culture and Art Programme, The Danish Arts Foundation’s DIVA programme, Danish Composers’ Society Group and KODA National Funds & Danish Actors Association.

ÅBNE SCENE

ParticipantsComposer: Line TjørnhøjHut#9: Jill Sigman(US)Performer: Soprano Kristin Norderval(N)Cellist Sofia Lind Pedersen Performance artist Elisabeth Færøy Lund(N)Transmedia artist: Troels PrimdahlConcert Set: Line Tjørnhøj & Troels PrimdahlPhotography: Louise KirkegaardHut #9 & Media assistant: Mads Eckert HermansenHut #9 assistant: Marie Elisabeth AndersenProduction management: 1:1 ProduktionProducer: TONE