The Up-river book

with words by Joseph Conrad, 2012
© ARD Tagesschau artangel / london
© ARD Tagesschau artangel / london
© ARD Tagesschau artangel / london
© ARD Tagesschau artangel / london
© ARD Tagesschau artangel / london
© ARD Tagesschau artangel / london
© ARD Tagesschau artangel / london
© ARD Tagesschau artangel / london
© ARD Tagesschau artangel / london
© ARD Tagesschau artangel / london
© ARD Tagesschau artangel / london
© ARD Tagesschau artangel / london
© ARD Tagesschau artangel / london
© ARD Tagesschau artangel / london
© ARD Tagesschau artangel / london
© ARD Tagesschau artangel / london
© ARD Tagesschau artangel / london
© ARD Tagesschau artangel / london
© ARD Tagesschau artangel / london
© ARD Tagesschau artangel / london
© ARD Tagesschau artangel / london
© ARD Tagesschau artangel / london

Room for London (Artangel)

Heiner Goebbels: "The Up-river Book"
with André Wilms, voice
Sira and Boubakar Djebaté, vocal and kora
Xavier Garcia, electronics

When I heard, that the steamboat "Roi des Belges” would strand on the rooftop of the Souhtbank Center, this was a perfect opportunity to work on Jospeh Conrad's "Up-river book" a notebook written in 1890 - while struggeling with this ship long time before writing "The Heart of Darkness". So I invited friends with whom I had already worked on his "Congo-Diary" 20 years ago on my music theatre production Ou bien le débarquement désastreux (Or the hapless landing): the two sengalesian Griots Sira and Boubakar Djebaté (voice and kora), the french musician Xavier Garcia (electronics) and the great actor André Wilms to build an acoustic image of that impossible travel.

"Mosquitos. Frogs. Beastly. Glad to see the end of this stupid tramp.
Feel rather seedy. Sun rose red. Very hot day. Wind South.
" Joseph Conrad, last entrance in his "Congo diary" before boarding the "roi des belges" on august 3rd 1890

Past Dates

February 2012
Artangels A Room for London
Southbank Centre, London (Great Britain)

Related Works

Ou bien le débarquement désastreux
Excerpts from the Music Theatre piece, 1993
DVD

Ou bien le débarquement désastreux
1993
Music Theatre

Ou bien le débarquement désastreux
Heiner Goebbels, 1995
CD

Oder die glücklose Landung
Live Audio Play, 2000
Audio Play

Ou bien Sunyatta
for Kora, Vocal and Big Orchestra, 2004
Composition for Orchestra