The Ten Murders of Josephine, by Rana Hamadeh
Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam, 8 Sept – 31 Dec, 2017
Performances at Rotterdamse Schouwburg, 14 & 15 December 2017

Artist Rana Hamadeh and Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art are seeking three performers to form a ‘Chorus’ for a new production and exhibition; The Ten Murders of Josephine.

The exhibition at Witte de With will function as an assembly line for an Opera, which will be staged at Rotterdamse Schouwburg on 14 – 15 December 2017.

The performance will tour to Ming Contemporary (Shanghai, May 2018) and potentially other venues within Europe.

This is a brand new work in development. As such the rehearsals of the piece are an integral component of the works gestation.

The Ten Murders of Josephine is a sound-based theatrical project that meets operatic form with the genre of legal spectacle, repositioning the first in relation to its obfuscated historic relationship to labor and subversion, and the second against what Hamadeh refers to as the field of “testimoniality”. For more information please refer to the abstract attached.

Applicants for the Chorus should meet the following requirements:

  • A background in theater, dance, music, performance, cabaret or opera. (Experience of performance in an art context desirable.)
  • Ability to sing/vocalize, and secondarily dance/move.
  • The project will run for 3 months with approx. 25 days rehearsal across 6 weeks (starting circa 18th September) and 2 performances (14 – 15 December).
  • Your role within the entire opera is to follow an existing score with some improvisation
  • All performers should be fluent in English
  • One role is Arabic speaking; the performer should be capable of vocalizing Arabic text and music.

Availability for the rehearsal and performance period, spanning 18 September – 15 December, is mandatory.

Participants will be offered a fixed rate of €3,780 for the rehearsal period, and a fee of €200 per performance.

Travel will be covered by Witte de With. It is expected that you hold an NS discount card for train travel.

Applicants should be based in the Netherlands or within travelling distance of Rotterdam.

Accommodation will not be covered.

If you are interested in auditioning please send your CV, current photo, and any supporting material (video clips) to Natasha Hoare: [email protected]

The Opera

Josephine, inspired from Kafka’s mouse songstress, is not in itself a ‘character’ but a morphing event. This event unfolds in ten movements that take place within three acts, preceded by a prologue. Each act assigns a number of characters to the event; characters that ‘ride’ the event or ‘occur to it’, rather than the other way round. In this sense, the event, Josephine, is the main ‘character’ of the Opera and the ‘characters’ that are attached to it, shall be understood as the ‘events’ that change Josephine’s course.

Josephine is an inarticulate irrational event, which – like the squeaking of Kafka’s mouse – paradoxically holds a significance to it that arises from the assembly of subjects and objects around it; but also holds an utter insignificance to it because it is a reminder of similar everyday happenings that are not understood completely as properly recognizable events. The unfolding of Josephine throughout the ten movements is structured around the recognition of the horrors inherent to the quotidian and the mundane aspects of the event, rather than around that which is visibly violent about it.