for marimba solo, audio-playback, and video

commissioned by Ewelina Hajda

music and video by Monika Dalach Sayers

performed by Ewelina Hajda

supported by The President of Lodz Artistic Scholarship 2021, Adams Percussion, Stowarzyszenie Autorów ZAiKS

​date of premiere:  December 2021

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Kobiety są | Women are is a multimedia performance and multi-layered composition for marimba solo, audio-playback, and video. The work is a blend of contemporary electronic textures and video with traditional scoring for marimba. The marimba and electronics create a textural background to the installation of voice collages that consist of original recordings of honest statements from women. The piece explores different views on gender roles within the context of social constructs as well as raises the topic of women’s rights and feelings, drawn from the daily life experience of women living in the City of Lodz, Poland. 

 

The marimba is a crucial component of the piece and the score was composed as a response to moving images of women's bodies. The work was developed after research of the instrument and consultation with a marimbist, during which different playing techniques were explored, searching for sounds that are subtle, delicate, and matte as well as those rougher ones and thicker. The aim was to create a library of different sound textures achievable on marimba and then apply them in the piece in response to moving images to celebrate the diversity of women's bodies and their various skin textures.

 

One of the project's most crucial goals was to give these women a space to talk and express their honest thoughts and concerns about gender roles in the XXI century. Women inspired this project—our mothers, grandmothers, and natives of Łódź, whose voices are often unnoticed and omitted in the discourse. 

In the project, 25 women from Lodz of different ages and backgrounds shared their points of view, life experiences, and wisdom by talking about their feelings, perceptions of themselves and their bodies, and their experience of life in modern-day Poland. The project includes women's moving portraits and their voice statements, which are the key components of the composition.

 

This project is about women, created by women. 

Watch full video here: