As a performer, writer, director and visual artist, Laurie Anderson has created unforgettable works spanning the worlds of experimental music, art and theatre. Her new, ongoing work, The Language of the Future, is a mixture of her mesmerising storytelling, music (including her celebrated electric violin) and interactive video performance. A work constantly in progress, The Language of the Future has been described as a ‘stand-up elegy’, in which her observations, anecdotes and trippy tales range across space, time, politics, linguistics and all points in between.
The first half of this evening sees Anderson developing a new joint performance with Zeitkratzer, a pan-European ‘soloist ensemble’ dedicated to bringing ‘joy’ to post-war contemporary music. Comprising some of today’s leading instrumentalists (including Norway’s Hild Sofie Tafjord), since 1999 Zeitkratzer have built up an idiosyncratic and groundbreaking repertoire from Xenakis and Stockhausen to Jim O’Rourke, Terre Thaemlitz, Carsten Nicolai and Anderson’s late husband, Lou Reed. Zeitkratzer will also act as guest performers in Laurie Anderson’s Language of the Future. This monumental evening promises a perfect meeting of musical minds.