Boring Festival 2024 blokkenschema dag 1 - vrijdag 26 januari 2024

The exhibition Voorbij de gletsjer takes you to the Arolla Glacier in the Swiss Alps. In the poetic video simulation by artist Jakob Kudsk Steensen, specially created for Pieter Teylers Huis, you experience the impressive glacier cave as a multidimensional ecosystem with towering ice walls, microscopic lichens trapped in droplets of tree resin, harmoniously cracking layers of ice, and captivating travel stories from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Sobaki is a collaboration between Elliot Dehaspe and Aleksej Ovsiannikov, primarily guided by a performative visual language. In their work, a passionate fascination for film and photography intersects with philosophical inquiries. "punt" is a visual poem in which Aleksej and Elliot explore the relationship between human dignity and inevitable change.

The artists of POUBELLE resist the unrestrained buying of new items. With their artworks made from what they find in the thrift store, on the street, or in the trash, they demonstrate that you can work with discarded materials without compromising aesthetic quality.

With POUBELLE, they aim to explore new territories, using an abstract visual language. They playfully bring found materials, such as packaging, an old broom, or a fly curtain, back to life. They transform these simple, discarded materials and objects into autonomous artworks, showcasing their simple beauty to others.

During the Boring Festival, POUBELLE predominantly exhibits XS works from a diverse group of artists of all ages from across the country and beyond: Akmar | Anne-Wil Lufting | HF van Steensel | Jean-Philippe Paumier | Joanneke Meester | Lisbeth Parisius | Mirjam Berloth | Pannas &Tulip | Porter Ellerman | Ronald de Ceuster | Tild Greene | Ton Zwerver

L’Asset: a quirky alt-artpop band from Haarlem, The Netherlands. Their music is flamboyant in its base, intense but never heavy handed and in Tessa’s clear, Britpop-type voice, that has often been compared to that of Florence + The Machine, Kate Bush and Björk you always feel a sense of urgency. Making music is her way of understanding and streamlining her emotions and the world around her: it’s her therapy.

L’Asset is the band formed around singer, songwriter, and producer Tessa Lamers. The name makes them one, yet they’re modular in form. With powerhouse musicians Alex Haak (guitar), Max Coenders (drums) and Dillan Sondervan (synths, live electronics) they create and ecclectic sound that immediately pulls you in.

Grooving synthbasses, out-of-the-box rhythms, powerful yet shimmering guitarhooks with sparks of shredding are combined with 80’s inspired synths that don’t shy away from the big pop-atmosheres. Their songs can be seen as the ultimate anthems for chaos, quirkiness and self-love and the constant desire for adventure, buzz and reinvention.

DJ duo Berg & Beuk mix their favorite records together at the Vishal on Friday. Their sets are filled with contrasting, energetic, and surprising genre collisions; uplifting and extremely danceable. It’s no wonder they have already performed at all major festivals, from Into The Great Wide Open to Lowlands, and now also at Boring!

Their artistry is a fusion of global pop hooks and quarter-tone melodic lines, crafting a distinctive blend of disco and dance music that draws inspiration from the rich musical traditions of SWANA (South-West Asia, North Africa) and beyond.

TootArd effortlessly melds retro funk elements with a contemporary, high-sheen sonic palette, resulting in a captivating and boundary-pushing musical journey. Their music transcends geographical borders, captivating audiences worldwide and solidifying their status as a dynamic force in the global music scene.

DJ duo Berg & Beuk mix their favorite records together at the Vishal on Friday. Their sets are filled with contrasting, energetic, and surprising genre collisions; uplifting and extremely danceable. It’s no wonder they have already performed at all major festivals, from Into The Great Wide Open to Lowlands, and now also at Boring!

Alternative hip-hop artist Michael Ekow is sonically paving his path between Indie, Trap and RnB & moving alongside the spaces of culture and art. Of Ghanaian descent Michael Ekow has spent his life moving around, England, Germany and now the Netherlands. A wordsmith zealous to capture feeling in records and poetic expressions that vividly paint moments as well as dissecting existential crisis’, Michael Ekow has been inspired by the likes of Rod Stewart, Florence and the Machine, Kendrick Lamar and Frank Ocean.

DJ duo Berg & Beuk mix their favorite records together at the Vishal on Friday. Their sets are filled with contrasting, energetic, and surprising genre collisions; uplifting and extremely danceable. It’s no wonder they have already performed at all major festivals, from Into The Great Wide Open to Lowlands, and now also at Boring!

Boyan Montero refers to their new piece as a collection of material remains of desires, blurring the line between center and periphery, inside and outside. By filling De Kleine Zaal with seemingly random objects such as children’s toys, drawings, and family photos, Montero’s installation revolves around the concept of a child constructing their world as a game. ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ is an iteration of their piece ‘Love Is In The Air Burning Frog,’ incorporating drawings, text, family photos, and found objects that the artist has accumulated over the year —some collected specifically for the occasion of the Boring Festival.

Masha WordPress is an Amsterdam-based DJ and producer known for her electrifying presence and high-voltage performances. Her productions blend various elements of electronic music and create a dynamic landscape full of unexpected twists and turns. During her DJ sets, she fills the dancefloor with unrestrained energy, taking listeners on a sonic journey between techno, electro, and breakbeat.

Colombian/Italian artist Mariposa is a force to be reckoned with in the music industry. At just 25 years old, she is redefining what Latin rap looks like today with her genre-defying sound an DIY aesthetic. Mariposa has just finished her upcoming EP ‘’El Otro Mundo’’. Which will be released summer 2023.

Mariposa has been heavily influenced by a diverse range of artist, including early influences such as Pastor Lopez, Rodolfo Aicardi Y su Tipica Ra7’, Cardi B, Billie Eilish, Smino, Isaiah Rashad, and Travis Scott, and current influences like SoFaygo, Don Toliver, Gunna, Ski Mask, Kodak Black, and Cardi B.

Masha WordPress is an Amsterdam-based DJ and producer known for her electrifying presence and high-voltage performances. Her productions blend various elements of electronic music and create a dynamic landscape full of unexpected twists and turns. During her DJ sets, she fills the dancefloor with unrestrained energy, taking listeners on a sonic journey between techno, electro, and breakbeat.

BUG brings a raw, untamed intensity that’s set to detonate the venue.

His sound is a sonic mixture of electro-punk and experimental hiphop, accompanied by loud vocals, bone-shaking 808’s and clashing beats.

Leaving the audience with their heads in their hands, overwhelmed by a unapologetically fierce performance.

The live-sets of BUG are bursting with energy, performers crawling over each other and a mosh pit in the venue. With its own sound and style, somewhere between hip-hop, punk and rave, BUG is infecting you with an urge to dance.

Masha WordPress is an Amsterdam-based DJ and producer known for her electrifying presence and high-voltage performances. Her productions blend various elements of electronic music and create a dynamic landscape full of unexpected twists and turns. During her DJ sets, she fills the dancefloor with unrestrained energy, taking listeners on a sonic journey between techno, electro, and breakbeat.

Véras Fawaz (29) is muzikant, zanger, songschrijver, presentator en filmmaker. Na zijn debuut-EP ‘Ali’ uit 2018, waarin hij op langzame lo-fi beats diepe, eerlijke teksten over zijn Islamitische vader, zijn overleden broertje en zijn persoonlijke issues zingt, bracht hij in 2020 de EP ‘Destructie’ uit.

Als filmmaker heeft Veras zich de afgelopen jaren bewezen als een groot talent met o.a. een korte film en videoclips voor grote namen uit het Nederlands muzieklandschap. Dit talent krijgt een steeds duidelijkere plek in de manier waarop hij zijn muziek benadert.

2023 wordt het jaar van zijn debuutalbum; Het Niets: een multidimensionaal muziek-project waarin deze verschillenden talenten voor het eerst volledig samenkomen.

Tsar B (pseudonym of Justine Bourgeus) is a Belgian musician. She played the violin for School is Cool from 2012 to 2016. Bourgeus took her first steps in music with the band Bear Run.

Her singing debut occurred on the Oscar and the Wolf cover single “Back to Black” by Amy Winehouse, recorded for the soundtrack of Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah’s film Black.

In 2015, she released her solo debut single “Escalate,” which gained international attention from publications such as The Fader, Noisey UK, BBC Radio 1, and more. In the summer of 2016, she followed up with her first EP, independently released on vinyl. In 2017, a new single titled “Golddigger” was released, and in early 2018, “Rattlesnake,” whose video premiered on Dazed & Confused.

Tsar B’s music is highly popular in the dance world. Her music has been featured on the American version of So You Think You Can Dance, and singer Eleni Foureira covered the song on the Greek So You Think You Can Dance. There are over a thousand choreographies set to her songs from around the world, a significant portion of which she has compiled on her YouTube channel [dead link]. The most popular is that of choreographer Alexander Chung, currently boasting over 41 million plays.

15 15 are making music like no one else.

Weaving between R&B, futuristic electronic explorations and blends of dancehall, they have created a distinct and singular sonic language that matches the uniqueness of their own rituals and mythologies.

Throughout their EP’s Le Jeune (2020) and Varūa 2022), the group have been conjuring epic soundscapes taking cues from criss-crossing underground movements and shaped by their Tahitian heritage Lauded by Clash, Crack, Dazed, Pitchfork, Resident Advisor, NPR, and a personal invitation by Benji B to his prestigious Maida Vale ‘End Of Year Special’, alongside George Riley, Liv.e and Ojerime, 15 15 keep creating autonomous spaces for marginalised voices, a counterpoint to the restrictive whims of normative gatekeepers in music and are now sitting firmly in the hinterlands of the progressive music scene.

Wheelchair Accessible

'When Sunshine becomes Moonlight' is an iconic, kinetic light artwork. It is a sculpture designed as a hanging mobile and consists of ten separate, moving, reflective elements. These swirls are illuminated with special light beams, creating a dynamic play of light and shadow. The sculpture hangs in the atrium, where the reflective swirls of the mobile interact with the foyer and the light. During the day, it will capture the ever-changing daylight through the glass ceiling, and in the evening, the sculpture casts reflections of light beams into the space: 'When Sunshine becomes Moonlight.'

Their common fondness for slick digital synths and 90s underground dance music genres brought them together to submerge in symbiotic jams during the very first lockdown in 2020.After a bunch of very successful under-the-radar concerts, they recorded an album in the summer of 2021 that was released in the spring of 2022.

Their gently disturbed mashup of 90s dance music genres like Chicago juke, Detroit techno, UK-Funky, Classic rave with corny jazz fusion and mundane jazz improv brings you to a pleasantly disturbed realm of unguilty pleasures, sheer weirdness and pure excitement.

‘Post Nudism Rave’ they call it. Others call it ‘free rave’, ’confusi-trance’ and ’sophisti-rave’.

A shiny 3D pixie fantasyland juxtaposed with a gritty dark smokey underworld of slimy aliens and smelly trolls.

You’ll be experiencing the quantum thrills of interplanetary ambient drones, sweet drumming frenzy, pulpy saccharine melodies, mushy basslines, all gently weaved into raw sweat-drippy dance music. Get (half) nude and dance!

Limited capacity, max 60 pax.

Goodbye_porn is an exploratory club experience about queer intimacy, club spaces and promiscuity. This rave in the making aims to explore and portray different ways we can be intimate with each other by deconstructing pornography and normative sexuality. Through moving limbs, risk taking, yet vulnerable physicalities and techno, four bodies will take you on a clubbing journey into pleasure and intimacy, by removing the shame and taboos that often follow sexuality, and inviting you to shed your own assumptions on what intimacy can be and look like.

Teddy’s Last Ride is a performing arts company with its own music label from Groningen, Netherlands. The company has an interdisciplinary approach with a focus on drama, dance and pop (music). Performances are created from a desire to explore new ways of making theater, with plenty of room for the development of and collaborations with talented creative makers. The work deals with current issues and appeals mainly to younger people. After seven years it is time for the farewell tour from hometown Groningen. After that, the makers will focus on new projects.

No Plexus is a genre-queer experimental electronic music duo consisting of artists No Compliments and Bec Plexus. Their concept-driven approach to music is the result of both artists’ background in contemporary classical music fusing with a shared affinity for electronic music.

Live sets from No Plexus combine raw and physical vocal performances, anchored by densely detailed drum programming and ever-evolving sound and visual design.
A natural extension of their ceaseless creativity is the fact that No Plexus were chosen to be Rewire’s Young Artist in Residence for 2023 and 2024.

Within the UK club scene, few occupy the space that London-based artist LUXE has carved out for herself in recent years. As a DJ, she’s a fixture, noted for her eclectic yet focused selections able to simultaneously blend in and stand out on a wide range of lineups, unperturbed by genre or scene constraints. As a producer, she is rapidly making a name for herself as a purveyor of thoughtfully multifaceted music that finds life on, and increasingly, beyond the dancefloor.

tbc

ZOBAYDA is an Egyptian transdisciplinary artist and a multi-talent juggling projects as a DJ, photographer, filmmaker, producer and curator. Their sets often characterize a tension-packed eclectic range of percussive sounds and energetic electronics from around the global south and beyond. Continuing the tradition of bringing people together through rhythm and percussion.

When you talk about DJs in Utrecht and the surrounding area, you absolutely cannot ignore Askmelater. 3voor12 mentioned them in the ’23 Ones to Watch’ list. Their sets at Doka, Basis, EKKO, and Wildeburg speak for themselves.

As a radio host, Askmelater is also one of the notable names. With a focus on promoting local sounds and selectors, they are a welcome guest, with a residency at Radioradio and several Future-Intel and Stranded FM sets.

Whether it’s footwork, 90s house, UK garage, or jungle, Askmelater brings a bold and personal flair to the dance.

“The impact of poor sleep on emotional and physical functioning is profound. ‘Into the Blue’ portrays a suffocating narrative of two young women grappling with sleep issues. Their distressing dreams and sleep disorders are captured in a stifling blend of film and dance. Concentration problems, exhaustion, and severe disruption of the circadian rhythm form the basis of this poignant performance. As a spectator, you stand close to the insomniac experiences of the two women. They take you on an intense journey through their daily struggles.”

A one-woman tea party full of songs, endearing dancing and too much talking – and you’re all very much invited.

As she talks and sings into her microphone, Kirsty Baker celebrates the pleasure and importance of coming together, here and now in the same room, with all the insecurities and questions that might come from getting so close to one another. Spontaneity, transparency, occasional chaos, a huge amount of joy and a good cup of tea guide Kirsty Baker and the audience through BASELINE BABBLING as they get to feel how fundamentally they need each other.

It really hurts when your head hits the concrete

A man drags his companion around like a rag doll; a 70 kilo body tethered to him. Lost and looking for the way, he deploys the rag doll as a living Swiss army knife. Tap on his head and water comes out, climb on his shoulders to look around. But what if your companion no longer wants to play along?

Disko Disko Soundsystem is a DJ duo from Utrecht with a passion for discovering unknown uplifting dancefloor killers. The combination of the heavy USB of Thijs and Lars’s even heavier recordbag brought them to numerous places like Le Mazette, Solar, Soenda where they played all sorts of global disco, groovy house and more. Besides playing during the weekends as Disko Disko Soundsystem they organize their own club night in Utrecht. The club nights & Soundsystem have one thing in common: the positive energy behind the booth easily seeps through to the crowd.

Under the Skin van Jonathan Glazer met Scarlet Johansson

Simeon, the producer behind the robotic sounds and beats in the theater play ‘More Human Than Human’ (also on Boring festival), aims to explore the more human facets of electronic music in his DJ set. Anticipate soulful blues solos interwoven with pulsating house beats, rap verses infused into drum ‘n’ bass, and perhaps even a sprinkle of nostalgic 90s dance hits for a sing-along experience.

Through a succession of appearances drawn from 2000s pop culture, I Doll takes us on a colourful, psychological journey of a young person in search of their identity. Drag and dance find each other in humor and nostalgic pop references.

Simeon, the producer behind the robotic sounds and beats in the theater play ‘More Human Than Human’ (also on Boring festival), aims to explore the more human facets of electronic music in his DJ set. Anticipate soulful blues solos interwoven with pulsating house beats, rap verses infused into drum ‘n’ bass, and perhaps even a sprinkle of nostalgic 90s dance hits for a sing-along experience.

Through a succession of appearances drawn from 2000s pop culture, I Doll takes us on a colourful, psychological journey of a young person in search of their identity. Drag and dance find each other in humor and nostalgic pop references.

Simeon, the producer behind the robotic sounds and beats in the theater play ‘More Human Than Human’ (also on Boring festival), aims to explore the more human facets of electronic music in his DJ set. Anticipate soulful blues solos interwoven with pulsating house beats, rap verses infused into drum ‘n’ bass, and perhaps even a sprinkle of nostalgic 90s dance hits for a sing-along experience.

Hart presents: Hemd van je Live!
This is a new talkshow that will be organized once a quarter in the Slachthuis. Experts from the music industry are given the stage and you can ask them anything they want. On Friday, January 26, the very first edition of Hemd van je Live will take place during Boring! Not at home, the Slachthuis, but in the beautiful lecture hall of the Teylers Museum.

Admission is free, everyone is welcome and you do not need a Boring ticket for this program!

L’Asset: a quirky alt-artpop band from Haarlem, The Netherlands. Their music is flamboyant in its base, intense but never heavy handed and in Tessa’s clear, Britpop-type voice, that has often been compared to that of Florence + The Machine, Kate Bush and Björk you always feel a sense of urgency. Making music is her way of understanding and streamlining her emotions and the world around her: it’s her therapy.
Singer Tessa Lamers is our Hemd van je Live guest. Offcourse she will make some fine live music and tell us all about being a performer in the Netherlands. Join us for a nice, interactive session.

Guest: Tessa Lamers, L’Asset
Host: Winston Brandon

About Hart
Hart, center for art and culture in Haarlem, brings culture to the school and the neighborhood together with artists.

The only queer space in Haarlem is the train to Amsterdam

For a while, queer nightlife seemed to be non-existent and unheard of in Haarlem. But something is cooking, and the scenario where LGBTQIA+ people don’t have to travel to Amsterdam anymore for a safe night out. During this 50 minute panel we will discuss the current state of queer nightlife, how we as a community establish safety and whether we need straight people to make sure that our spaces can stay open. Come on by at Teylers Museum and join our conversation.

Panel: Rick Busscher (Stichting art. 1) and Myles van der Jagt (Fuck the Cistem) and more TBA.
Host: Brecht van der Meulen (Haarlem Town Queers)

The motherland is a dream. Mountainous, hidden in fog with grumbling sulfur bubbling up from her hot springs.

Especially for Boring Festival 2024 Frances Rompas exhibits an experimental film/video-installation that showcases a fragmented mind. Past, present and longing. Belonging? Cut with the real and the unreal. Synthetics versus the natural landscape. Stop. Go. Return. Scored with 1970’s synthesisers and distant exotics. Freeze. Insert smoke machine.

Set in Teylers Museum this video work gains an extra layer of consequence. Within the tradition of enlightenment, world-explorations and the urge to collect objects and phenomena, to understand more of the world we live in, Frances Rompas decolonises the origin myth of her Indonesian tribe.

The video’s biographical starting point takes the visitor from the internal world of the maker through a search for history. Hoping to conclude with an universal longing for a deep connection with ancestors, nature and natural sites. Genius loci.

About the artist:
Frances Rompas is visual artist, filmmaker and DJ. Her art projects have an essayistic nature and often involve artistic research. She sees video’s ability of including emotion into knowledge is essential to unravel complex issues. Bringing people together in a physical space to collectively walk an emotional pathway is her way of coping with today, and to activate social cohesion.

Her presentation at Teyler’s Museum is part of the development of “Toko Waar Is Thuis” supported by NL Film Fund. Artistic research for this work has been supported by Stimuleringsfonds voor de Creatieve Industrie and K.F. Hein Fonds.

LAWAAI is an Amsterdam-based DJ collective which champions femme-identifying artists. Since its inception in 2022, LAWAAI Collective has given a platform to countless up-and-coming artists through events and radio takeovers. Its founding members INA, LAN The Wireless and LENI have played dancefloors across Amsterdam – including a vinyl-only set at ADE 2023 – as well as clubs and festivals in Barcelona and Manchester.

About Me & My Mother

Funny, emotional & psychological, this theater piece aims to heal the mother wound using Indie Nile’s signature “drag therapy”. In the show, Indie appears on the stage as a drag version of his mother. During the stand-up sections of the show, he speaks with his own voice as the man who struggles with the ‘love/hate’ relationship with his mother. During the lipsync parts, he becomes his mother as he lipsyncs to dramatic pop songs that tell her life story. In Indie’s own words: “I believe that when you are ready to laugh about your trauma, is when you’ve started healing it. That’s how I know I’m finally ready to tell you a story about me and my mother. The full story with all its highs and lows”.

LAWAAI is an Amsterdam-based DJ collective which champions femme-identifying artists. Since its inception in 2022, LAWAAI Collective has given a platform to countless up-and-coming artists through events and radio takeovers. Its founding members INA, LAN The Wireless and LENI have played dancefloors across Amsterdam – including a vinyl-only set at ADE 2023 – as well as clubs and festivals in Barcelona and Manchester.

Koortsdroom
Versmelting van mens en dier

In fairy tales, legends, and popular culture, animals often symbolize humans and are attributed with human characteristics. The exhibition 'Fever Dream' focuses on the relationship between humans and animals. Contemporary artists show how humans and animals merge: intense, colorful, imaginative, and often with an ominous edge.

The starting point of the exhibition is the new, never-before-seen video artwork *Beast and Feast* by Prix de Rome-nominated artist Josefin Arnell. In *Beast and Feast*, a policewoman searches for the perfect police horse. The psychological torment she experiences during this search becomes terrifyingly real: the woman transforms into her ideal horse.

The Frans Hals Museum combines *Beast and Feast* with a unique mix of contemporary art that explores the relationship between humans and animals. From the malevolent fairy tale *The Bird Game* by Marianna Simnett and the socially critical flying elephant by Dena Yago from the rich collection of the Frans Hals Museum, to the imaginative sculptures by Mamali Shafahi and the dreamy paintings by Donglai Meng, as well as exceptional works by Jeroen Eisinga, Jana Euler, Valentina Gal, Hadrien Gérenton, Juliana Huxtable & Hannah Black, Marc Mulders, Markus Selg, and Luuk Wilmering. With this imaginative journey of an exhibition, the Frans Hals Museum invites visitors to dream with their eyes open.

Please note that some images may be perceived as shocking.

Why do we act the way we do? Why is it so difficult for humanity to learn from our mistakes. Where are we now and what would it look like if we did things completely differently? For this 3 hour performance we zoom in on civilization, on history, on the present and we look at civilization in the future. Where does the need for civilization come from today and what role has religion played in this? If you lived a hundred years ago, you were in a completely different time. Where faith was on a different pedestal and we showed gratitude for our evening meal, now we already complain when flash delivery drivers do not deliver your groceries within 10 minutes.

The performance De Beschaving is a physical iconoclasm, a succession of controversial thoughts, an absurd representation of human history in which we question ourselves and the audience what actually is civilized and whether this is desirable at all. In the Van Beinum Hall of De Philharmonie, Het Paradijs creates a place where space will be continuously transformed by those who call themselves civilization.

Collective Het Paradijs is characterized by the large amount of absurd images, their inexhaustible energy and high physicality. A 4-hour performance exclusively made for this festival and can only be seen here at the Boring Festival in Haarlem.