VERVERS
What are the invisible rules of the music stage and how do we break them? How do we narrate ourselves and our sonic worlds through performance? These are the questions that brought the musicians Winnie Conradi, Gabriel de Oliveira, Jelle Huizinga and Meis Vranken to VERVERS, a multi-media music residency initiated by Cinetol, Amsterdam.
The group of artists has spent the last year working on their individual multimedia-performances, following workshops, giving and receiving feedback, and thoroughly getting to know each other's practice. However diverse their musical backgrounds may be (a rapping actor, an impro jazz musician, a DIY indie adept and a multimedia artist), they have found themselves being tied together by a shared love for the music stage and an equally strong urge to question it.
At U? 2025, the members of VERVERS will share their brand new individual performances in a whirlwind of genres and shapes: expect punk-rap, anti-death procession, filmlike narration and spectacular shadowplay.
Winnie Conradi is a musician from the Dutch DIY-indiescene, working both as a solo musician and as guitarist in indieband The Klittens. At U?, she will be showing the result of a yearlong research into her musical roots, merging her love for DIY culture with musical elements from both her Dutch and Indonesian cultural background.
Gabriel de Oliveira works as an improviser-songwriter juggling guitar, singing, choreography and cultural organizing practices. Throughout the last years, they’ve been seen in transit between the Netherlands and Brazil: simultaneously leading KB_, a collective-label nourishing new globalized scenes, and projects including Saturno Santos’ Something, qbae and BRIGADERA. Their vision of globality is informed by urbanized life, “folk” mystery, and performing with the likes of Maracatu Leão Misterioso, Wendy Eisenberg and Oscar Jan Hoogland.
Jelle Huizinga started his musical career as a rapper in the blossoming hip-hop-scene of Zwolle, and brought his rapping skills into a completely different context by studying performance at the Maastricht Academy of Dramatic Arts. At U?, he will, for the first time, bring his music performance back to the music stage, merging both his acting and rapping experience into a brand new performance.
Meis Vranken is a multimedia-artist from Amsterdam. She works with film, music, visual art and performance, and is also known as the frontwoman of the art-punkband Yodel Queen. At U?, she will show her first ever multimedia performance, revolving around the theme of “The Home”.
15.30 - 16.00 | Meis Vranken
16.45 - 17.15 | Winnie Conradi
17.45 - 18.15 | Gabriel de Oliveira
18.30 - 19.00 | Jelle Huizinga