Silk. Sugar. Sand

Every time you take your phone out of your pocket, you are, in reality, holding a small pile of sand in your hand. In that moment, you are connected to the history of a material that stretches across thousands of years and continents. A story of nature and trade, desire and power, and of a resource that continues to move through global commerce and conflict.

SILK. SUGAR. SAND. is a newly composed vocal work by Marie Dahl Assembly featuring five singers from Ars Nova Copenhagen on stage. Three movements composed by three international composers — Tiange Zhou, Blasio Kavuma, and Arnannguaq Gerstrøm — are woven together through an electronic soundscape. In both music and text, each movement takes as its point of departure a different material — silk, sugar, and sand — exploring the history, materiality, and nature behind the raw materials that shape the development of the world.

The libretto and staging are created by director Marie Dahl, who, after many years of close collaboration with Kirsten Dehlholm and the legendary performance company Hotel Pro Forma, has now created the first of several independent works with Marie Dahl Assembly.

SILK. SUGAR. SAND. tells the story of three materials that have left deep marks on our culture and everyday lives. It is about the wounds of colonialism, industrialization, and the destruction of ecosystems that still remain open. About human ingenuity and endless appetite. About the pursuit of luxury and pleasure, money, monopolies, and power. About the beauty and inequality, wealth and poverty, they have brought with them.

The performance is a visual journey through three tableaux of sculptural costumes and light, where sensuality plays a central role. The tactility, the sounds and the light, the beauty and the brutality connected to these materials are felt both sonically and visually.

Three singers sit on extremely tall stools, dressed in large, floor-length sculptural costumes made up of three layers. Between each act, they remove one layer, revealing a new story and a new materiality.