Happy New Fear
© Rima Najdi
Happy New Fear

So 08/10, 23.00
ORF Landesstudio Steiermark – Studio 3
Ö1 Kunstradio
Rima Najdi (LB), Kathy Alberici (GB), Ana Nieves Moya (ES)

What does a society in fear do? Does it stop functioning? Does it repress everything and just carry on? Are we alone with our fear, or do we share it? How can we talk about such feelings? Lebanese artist Rima Najdi explored these questions and others in her 2014 performance “Madame Bomba: The TNT project”. With a fake bomb strapped around her body she walked around Beirut, thus personifying what everyone was thinking: the next terrorist attack could be waiting for me around every corner. Together with composer and musician Kathy Alberici, Rima Najdi assimilated her thoughts and experiences in the role of “Madame Bomba” in a powerful radio play that confronts listeners with their own fears. “Happy New Fear”, that was awarded one of the two production prizes by CTM Radio Lab 2017, goes on show at musikprotokoll as an audiovisual live version accompanied by visuals developed by video artist Ana Nieves Moya.

CTM Radio Lab 2017: Coproduction Deutschlandradio Kultur – Hörspiel/Klangkunst, CTM Festival. In cooperation with Goethe-Institut, ORF musikprotokoll, Ö1 Kunstradio und SoCCoS – the Sound of Culture, the Culture of Sound Initiative. Happy new Fear was developed in part at the 2016 Sundance Theater Lab in MENA with additional Post-Lab funds possible from the Andrew w. Mellon foundation. Kathy Alberici was Shape artist 2015.