Vertigo Society's proud Action:


  Cosmic Premiere: Live calligraphy & body painting «Songs of No Return», Schweiz Libanon, 2020, 60 Minuten

ART RAID – WAWI X DNEPR LIVE CALLIGRAPHY & BODY PAINTING «SONGS OF NO RETURN»

Doors: 20.00 – Performance: 21.00

What does calligraphy sound like and which signs and colours become visible through music? The newly founded Vertigo Society aims to open an intercultural and cross-disciplinary dialogue that tears down simplified and man-made art categorizations. Together with the Swiss-Lebanese duo Putzi Productions and Modern Lights we present on March 5th in the Kino in der Reitschule an encounter of the arts – a cosmic premiere of:

ART RAID – WAWI (Tripoli, Lebanon) x DNEPR (Bern, CH): LIVE CALLIGRAPHY AND BODY PAINTING «SONGS OF NO RETURN»



Drone meets calligraphy: the Bernese underground musician Andrea Kaiser alias Dnepr and the Lebanese calligraffiti artist Abdel Kader Wawi alias 5919 calligraphy invite you to an audiovisual initiation rite of the arts in an approximately 1-hour- performance: Dneprs's ephemeral, wordless «Songs of No Return» speak through Wawis ornate calligraphy signs, created live on stage, and even come to life physically breathing on a painted human body. Street art, guitar riffs and a magic play of light and shadow across the screen and walls will be seen and heard at the Kino in der Reitschule.

WAWI - 5919 calligraphy (Tripoli, Lebanon)

In his hometown Tripoli, Abdel Kader Wawi aka 5919 calligraphy started in 2011 to spread messages of hope and trust in a brighter future. Where everybody could see them: On the walls - as ornate calligraffities. This urban street art «has been blooming in Lebanon in the last 10 years», he says. In contrast to Switzerland, «it's not looked down upon as vandalism, but appreciated by the community». Unlike Beirut before the revolution, he explains, Tripoli was considered a conservative stronghold. A perception Wawi tries to alter: «Calligraphy or calligraffiti can transform the area and make it a catalyst of positiv change.» Encouraged by the well-known tunisian-french calligraphy artist eL Seed, Wawi discovered a thriving scene at the Beirut Street Art festival White Wall and different signature styles, that inspired him. His own is an ongoing research and development: research of old and current calligraphy artists on one hand, and on the other in terms of aestethics, the orchestration of colors and lines. Wawi experiments with a variety of materials and different surfaces offering an infinite playground of challenges and possibillities for his artistic expression.

DNEPR – Andrea Kaiser (Bern, CH)

A special case in Bern - and this in a good sense - is Andrea Kaiser, who calls his one-man-band Dnepr. Already in the 1980ies Kaiser produced guitar sounds in Bern's underground music scene that made the Swiss capital feel uneasy. 2019, after 25 years, Dnepr finallyreleased its comeback album «Songs of No Return».

Kaiser is hardly comparable to anyone else. He loves to read long, difficult reads, mostly from dead authors - and he knows his books in and out. For «Songs of No Return» Kaiser got tempted by these books to compose wordless musical interpretations that, in their uniqueness, aim at everything that is commercial and that runs on the radio nowadays.

Partners in crime

Putzi Productions – music, differently.

Modernlight.ch

Simone Bardi Visual Artist