This show started the precursory line up of a number of events celebrating the European Capital of Culture awards of Esch (Luxemburg), which all led to the REMIX Opening in February 2022. With this event, we bundled up with local artists and producers of music and dance, and started to re-asses the cultural treasures of the Esch2022 region through the power of music, performance, architecture, lighting, and history, as a clearly contemporary approach.

We’ve facilitated a creative process, but had artists of the Esch2022 area – Arthur Stammet and Paul Kayser of the FIMOD project, the dancers of LUCODA, and our generous hosts of St. Martin’s Church – to explore the creative questions that make up Esch2022: What does it mean for a region and its people to get on this journey from a shared past to a seemingly fractured future, and how can this process bring people together? This performance was the official start of this process, just before the Esch2022 project submission will present their outcomes during the cultural year.

The musical score was a highly complex tapestry of algorithms, rendered through a bespoke sound system. It was organised chaos – and as such very similar to the processes of co-creation. It comprised industrial sounds, steel hammering, and synthesiser sounds, it was loud, chaotic, but very visceral. The performance of the dancers is contemplative yet redeeming. It’s a journey of struggle, it’s history is loaded. But it is also full of wonder and light. This was a journey from chaos to beauty, from the granular to the monumental.

Read more about the REMIX Festival, which this show kicked off in September 2021 over at battleROYAL’s blog.

This show was a battleROYAL production in the Esch2022 project pipeline to celebrate the region’s award of European Capital of Culture 2022.

Creative Team

Executive Creative Director Brendan Shelper (battleROYAL.berlin)
Show Director Gabriela Flores
Co-Director & Creative Producer Andy Machals
Light Design Chris Moylan
Programmer Sebastian Huwig
Production Manager Ky Lloyd

A special thanks to the St. Martin’s church of Dudelange, the musicians and composers from the FIMOD project, the choreographers and dancers of LUCODA, and the local production team of the Esch2022.

Photos by Chris Moylan, Rethink for Esch2022, Andy Machals (Instagram:@andymachals).