Big Bang Festival 5

Kids 0-12 years old with their families and friends

Come through the doors of Onassis Stegi and discover the wildest musical kaleidoscope imaginable. If your kids are between… 0 and 12 years old, there is a music festival made especially for them; sounds, tunes and beats that will make you want to get up and dance ‘explode’ in the “Big Bang Festival”.

Photo: Andreas Simopoulos

We know it all too well; nobody appreciates music quite like kids—they follow every beat, open up their eyes to every strange sound and lay their hands on all sorts of musical instruments and objects without giving it a second thought. Instead of telling them “Don’t do this or that,” we tell them to come through the doors of Onassis Stegi in a hurry and plunge themselves into the world of music at the Bing Bang Festival, on 25 and 26 May.

This is a music festival devoted to their magnificent sense of curiosity. And—just so that you parents know—we have tons of wild stuff in store for you every year. We sneak into scientists’ labs or into the belly of a guitar, we rub balloons together, become orchestra conductors or just parade through the neighbourhood to the sound of music. Come join us then, together with your kids, to discover all the surprises we’ve got in store for you and to experiment with music by taking part in all the action. Your kids will proudly say in years to come that they went to their first music festival before they could even speak.

Credits

Curated by Christos Carras, Myrto Lavda

In addition to the Onassis Stegi, this network includes the following participating institutions: Fundacao Centro Cultural de Belém (Portugal), Espoon Kaupunki (Finland), Opéra de Rouen and Opéra de Lille (France), Palais des Beaux Arts and MotorMusic (Belgium), Instituto de la Cultura y de las Artes Sevilla – ICAS (Spain), Childrens’ Cultural Center LTD-THE ARK (Ireland), De Twentse Schouwburg (The Netherlands) and Eesti Kontsert (Estonia).

The BIG BANG music festival for kids is co-produced by the Onassis Stegi and Zonzo Compagnie, and forms part of the European BIG BANG network.

It is co-funded by the “Creative Europe” program of the European Union.

Program

SATURRDAY 25 AND SUNDAY 26 MAY

Rhythms tell their stories

Michalis Afolayan & Anasa African music with percussion and choreographies in Dourgouti park.

Dourgouti Park | Free admission | Children and adults of all ages Saturday: 13:00, 17:30, 19:00 | Sunday: 12:30, 14:00, 17:30

An interactive workshop/performance introducing participants to African polyrhythm and dance. Coordinated by Michael Afolayan and Jessica ben Anosike (a member of the Bantu Dancers), the event also features the ANASA Cultural Centre African percussion ensemble.

Participants are introduced to traditional rhythms through the music of the body (body music, clapping) and the human voice (singing, chanting) and get to experience the participatory call and response music of West Africa.

The ANASA drummers will consist of students from the Centre’s percussion school. In parallel, myths and stories will be narrated with a street theatre dynamic, describing how African instruments and rhythms came into being and got their names, when the rhythms are played, and what they mean in an African cultural context.

The ANASA drummers play djembe, dundun (kenkeni sangbang, dunduba), shekere, kengele and sing traditional African songs.

The cooking orchestra

Dimosthenis Grivas Music and cooking with the performer Angelos Papadimitriou.

Upper Stage | 5 € | Children from 4... until 104 years old Saturday: 13:00, 17:30 | Sunday: 13:00, 17:00

What happens in masterchef Angelos Papadimitriou’s kitchen when he invites a quirky group of sous-chef-musicians to create a meal for a whole bunch of kids?

How can the sound of spoons, forks, fridges, pots and whisks blend and become one with synths and drums in a soundscape that’s finger-licking good? How can cooking become a game and a song? A unique journey through music and cooking unfolds before our eyes as suddenly everything’s possible in our kitchen.

Copper & Skin

HOP FROG Fanfare Concert on the Main Stage featuring a Belgium group with bizarre and super-sized brass instruments and a performance with something of the marching band about it.

Main stage | 5 € | Age guidance: 6+ Saturday: 14:00, 18:30 | Sunday: 14:00, 18:00

"Copper & Skin" is an ode to the strength and solace of music. One moment a cheerful invitation to dance, then a stately tribute or a comforting sound in a funeral procession. Fanfare music carries us through every ritual in life - is almost the true soundtrack of life itself. On scene: two percussionists and seven wind instrumentalists. Nine musical whizzes and character faces who expand the concept of 'fanfare' in all directions. They sound both grotesque and absurd, and at other times subdued and simple. But always real: with breath, sweat and rhythms that make you move.

For Zonzo Compagnie, director/choreographer Randi De Vlieghe and the Borgerhout-ian Hop Frog Fanfare wallow themselves in the rich tradition of fanfares and the many situations they play a role in. Together, they create a visual musical production that tells a universal tale for a very wide audience. About humans, their recklessness, their cruelty, their tenderness, their vulnerability, their resilience and their joie de vivre.

The land I've never seen before

Anna Pangalou An interactive contemporary music workshop that draws on the Fluxus movement.

The Galaxy Corner | 2 € | Children aged 5 to 8 and adults who want to see the world like children do Saturday: 12:30, 14:30, 17:00, 19:00 | Sunday: 13:00, 15:00, 16:30, 18:30

A stroll through the "The never before seen land", inhabited by creatures we have never seen before doing things we have never seen before.

There’s no such thing as a mistake here, everyone is friends with everyone else, and they have just one sense: their hearing. They communicate with sounds and they feed on sounds.

A game for young and old rooted in Fluxus, the anti-art movement of the ’60s which sought to remove the distance between the artist and their public using surrealism and humour to forge a meaningful link between art and life.

A performance grounded in the Doreen Nelson Method of Design-Based Learning, Backwards Thinking™ in which children find their own answers to the questions: What need gives rise to art and what is music?

There was once a little boat

Chrysa Karaiskou, Maria Ploumi, Eleni Kokkala (Biz Bize) Concert with traditional Greek instruments like the outi and the lute and a unifying concept: a sea voyage around the coasts of the Mediterranean.

5th floor - Young Theatre Workshop | 2 € | Age guidance: 3+ Saturday: 12:30, 15:00, 17:30 | Sunday: 12:30, 15:30, 17:30

"There was once a little boat" is an interactive concert for children. The scene is set with three musicians and their traditional instruments (kanun, outi, lute), a floor map of the Mediterranean, and a paper boat. With the help of the children, our boat will embark on a musical voyage around the Mediterranean.

Starting in Spain and reaching as far as Thrace, the journey will give the children in the audience the chance to hear traditional songs and melodies from different parts of the region we call home, to play with rhythmic and musical motifs, to reproduce sounds, and to guide the plot of our story.

Forest of sound

Alyssa Moxley & Anastasia Douka Sound installation - a forest full of sounds. Tree-sculptures emit sounds from lands and landscapes the musicians have visited.

The Galaxy Space | 2 € | Age guidance: 5+ Saturday: 13:30, 15:00, 16:30, 18:30 | Sunday: 12:30, 14:30, 16:00, 18:00

In "Forest of Sound", our young visitors are invited to contemplate the sounds of the natural world and of the city beneath sculptural trees which, inspired by the oracle of Dodona, are hung with various sounding objects: fruit, papier mâché leaves and everyday objects.

Their interaction with these objects allows field recordings gathered from diverse environments around the world (insects harmonizing, birds calling, leaves rustling, streams babbling, car horns pipping, passers-by talking, dogs barking, bells ringing etc.) to be transformed into music.

Following a musical performance by the artists, children and parents will be invited to play and create sound worlds for themselves.

Ethereal waves

May Roosevelt Theremin concert with May Roosevelt. The concert, as well as featuring an instrument that’s very special in its own right, uses sound to create a lakeside landscape with fireflies.

5th floor - Young Theatre Workshop | 3 € | Age guidance: 4+ Saturday: 13:30, 16:30, 18:30 | Sunday: 14:30, 16:30, 18:30

A concert in which the music draws its inspiration from nature and invites children to listen and mould a fantastic lake environment with the power of their imaginations.

In this musical fairy tale, electronic melodies and rhythms tell their story, creating the fantastic soundscape in which we make the acquaintance of one of the first electronic musical instruments (1919), the only instrument that is played without the musician touching it: the ethereal theremin. The set design underscores the relationship between music and technology and well as the ‘magic’ of music conjured up out of thin air.

At the end of the concert, the children will have the opportunity to try their hands at playing the theremin themselves, guided by the soloist.

Deep Fusion Butterfly

Deep Fusion Butterfly Band Workshop with adults with and without intellectual disability that ends with a concert for children. Musicians and educators have worked together to create a concert featuring both contemporary and traditional music.

Exhibition Hall -1 | Free admission with entrance tickets | Age guidance: 3+ Saturday: 13:30, 17:30 | Sunday: 13:30, 17:30

Deep Fusion Butterfly is a mixed band of music lovers with and without intellectual disability. The group made its first live appearance at last year's Onassis Stegi Borderline Festival led by the Argentine musician Alan Courtis. Deep Fusion Butterly will be back at this year's Big Bang Festival with new members and an imaginative program which shifts between pop, rock, traditional and electronic music.

Come and share in the power and the joy of music and dance!

Nomad Project: "Touching sound"

Members of the Hop Frog group (Bert Bernaerts & Tijl Pyrijns) with a group of school children Children and teenagers work with instruments and objects to massage the audience with sound.

Exhibition Hall -1 | Free admission with entrance tickets | Age guidance: 5+ Saturday: 12:30, 16:30 | Sunday: 12:30, 16:30

"Touching sound" is a workshop that explores the physical experience of sound and music. First, the participants - a group of kids and teenagers between the age of 7 and 12 years old - learn the concept of "massage sonore" through working together for a week. They learn to manipulate sound objects and music instruments to create a musical environment that is experienced as a "massage of the ears" by the audience.

As a second step, musicians Tijl Pyrijns and Bert Bernaerts integrate the musical background of the participants to co-create a composition with silence, minimal sounds and spatialization as key elements. This composition is performed by all the participants of the group on the Big Bang Festival in Athens.

Des Madeleines dans la Galaxie

Spat'Sonore French ensemble with improvised, weirdly-shaped wind instruments perform an action somewhere between an installation and a concert for people at the event.

The Galaxy Studio | 3 € | Age guidance: 4+ Saturday: 13:00, 16:00, 18:00 | Sunday: 13:30, 15:30, 17:30

Welcome to this sound igloo of copper climbing plants. Trumpets, tubas, trombones and so on, stretching above your head and woven into a roof of wind instruments. Five drivers come closer and conjure up a world of wonderful sounds. They control valves, blow and sigh, scrape and tap rhythms and sounds above your head and towards each other.

The entangled pipes and tubes make their way towards 30 or so sound funnels. Spread around the room they embrace you with sound. The result is impressive. You find yourself at the heart of sound, completely submerged in a sound bubble. The house of copper pipes rears and wavers.

Lying on your soft cushions you hear air masses, underground jungles, bubbling oceans, exotic islands and a far-off melody.

Information

Onassis Stegi

Syngrou 107

25 & 26 May 2019

Inside and outside Onassis Stegi