Three Nights in a Theatre, and Why That Changes the Music
Ravenna's festival puts dub, drone and heavy electronics in a seated room, and builds the whole thing around a king who died fifteen centuries ago.
Photo: link preview from transmissionsfestival.org
Transmissions XVIII runs 19 to 21 November at Teatro Rasi in Ravenna, doors at 20:30, under the subtitle Teodorico. The theme comes from the 1500th anniversary of Theodoric's death, and in this city that is less abstract than it sounds: the king's mausoleum stands a short walk from mosaics made by people who arrived from somewhere else entirely. A festival about cultural encounter and fragile coexistence has a ready-made argument in the streets around the venue. The programming carries it rather than illustrating it. Kevin Richard Martin opens with Sub Zero alongside Radwan Ghazi Moumneh and Frédéric D. Oberland, with Sara Persico also on the first night. Iggor Cavalera, Alina Kalancea and Adriano Zanni take the second. Marta Salogni closes the festival on the third, with PHREN, Blak Saagan and Majid Bita, and Tristan Da Cunha. These are artists for whom drone, improvisation and low-frequency pressure are not separate disciplines. What makes the festival distinct is the room. Heavy electronic music in a seated theatre is not a compromise forced by budget. It is a different instrument. Nobody is walking past on the way to the bar, nobody is talking over the quiet passages, and in music built on sustained tone and slow development the quiet passages are where everything happens. A theatre is also built to carry sound rather than to contain a crowd, which changes how a sub behaves in the room. There is a practical case for going as well. Ravenna is small, walkable and far cheaper than the festival cities two hours north, and the mosaics are open during the day. A weekend here costs a fraction of three nights in Milan, and you leave having seen something other than the inside of a venue and a train station. Day tickets are €20 in advance and €22 on the door, with an under-25 reduction at €15. A limited early bird pass covering all shows was offered at €50 plus fees. More names and the full TRANSMISSIONS OFF programme were still to be announced at the time of writing, which in this festival's case usually means the stranger half.
Official site: https://transmissionsfestival.org/