Najmniejszy słoń świata

We invite children aged 3–7 and their families to take part in a musical fairy tale!

One day at the zoo, a lit­tle ele­phant was born. He had one dream: to set off on a jour­ney to Africa, the land his moth­er had told him about. The adven­tures of this curi­ous hero, described and illus­trat­ed in Maciej Szy­manow­icz’s book Najm­niejszy słoń świa­ta, form the basis of our adap­ta­tion and musi­cal inter­pre­ta­tion of this wild tale. You will hear African bal­a­phones, a cir­cus snare drum, and a dark for­est con­jured up per­cus­sive­ly by the unpre­dictable impro­vis­ers of Hash­tag Ensem­ble. The sto­ry told by the nar­ra­tor’s voice will reach its grand finale in a shared illus­tra­tion per­for­mance led by none oth­er than the author him­self. After the con­cert, as always, we will find time for up-close encoun­ters with the instru­ments. Come sail with us!

Per­form­ers:

Anna Sza­w­iel nar­ra­tion

Mag­dale­na Kordy­lasińs­ka-Pękala per­cus­sion instruments

Julian­na Kami­la Siedler-Smu­ga per­cus­sion instruments

Maciej Szy­manow­icz illus­tra­tion workshop

Pro­duc­tion:

Ania Sza­w­iel script and text adaptation

About the series: 

ĄsąBąble are per­for­ma­tive con­certs of new music for fam­i­lies with chil­dren aged 0–7. Each one is built on an orig­i­nal script in which lis­ten­ing to music, inter­ac­tive play and edu­ca­tion­al val­ue are equal­ly impor­tant. In a space friend­ly to the very young, audi­ences can lis­ten to music by lead­ing con­tem­po­rary com­posers in ver­sions and pro­por­tions adapt­ed for lit­tle ears. The the­atri­cal for­mat of the con­certs encour­ages con­cen­tra­tion and allows the sounds to cast their spell, while invi­ta­tions to join in impro­vi­sa­tion release the nat­ur­al expres­sive needs of young peo­ple. In keep­ing with Janusz Kor­cza­k’s words — “There are no chil­dren, only peo­ple” — all par­tic­i­pants are treat­ed with respect and have a share in how the event unfolds. The series presents exclu­sive­ly music of the 20th and 21st cen­turies. A reg­u­lar fea­ture is the pre­sen­ta­tion of a record­ing of a sym­phon­ic work or a piece from the world of sound design and electronics.

Although each edi­tion of ĄsąBąble takes musi­cal fab­ric as its start­ing point, it also abounds in non-musi­cal con­texts close to Hash­tag Ensem­ble’s prac­tice: lit­er­ary, visu­al and social. The events are inter­dis­ci­pli­nary in char­ac­ter: invit­ed artists who have long cre­at­ed work in prox­im­i­ty to chil­dren’s imag­i­na­tion also take part — dancers, per­form­ers, illus­tra­tors and writ­ers. The­atre is a nat­ur­al field of action for new music, so the ĄsąBąble series also incor­po­rates actors’ train­ing for musi­cians as part of its edu­ca­tion­al character.

The cura­tor and host of the series is Anna Sza­w­iel — an actress and nar­ra­tor who spe­cialis­es in inter­dis­ci­pli­nary cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al events. She likes to work at bound­aries: between con­cert and per­for­mance, edu­ca­tion and play, phys­i­cal­i­ty and abstrac­tion, always in con­nec­tion with chil­dren’s imag­i­na­tion. The con­cert pro­grammes are co-cre­at­ed by the musi­cians of Hash­tag Ensemble.

The ĄsąBąble project cre­ative­ly devel­ops the con­cept of the “Smykow­iz­je” series of the “Muzy­ka jest dla wszys­t­kich” foun­da­tion, with­in which in 2016–2022 Hash­tag Ensem­ble and Anna Sza­w­iel per­formed togeth­er over 130 con­certs and mini-per­for­mances, search­ing for the most inter­est­ing forms of pre­sent­ing new music. The con­cept and cura­tion of Smykow­iz­je was by Anna Kierkosz. It was the first series of events in Poland addressed to the very youngest, in which con­tem­po­rary music played the lead­ing role.

The Hash­tag Lab Con­tem­po­rary Music Space is co-financed by the Cap­i­tal City of War­saw. The media patron of the Hash­tag Lab Con­tem­po­rary Music Space is POLMIC​.PL.

The event is under the patron­age of Krop­ka pub­lish­ing house. 

Tickets

60 PLN