She Makes Noise 2023
She Makes Noise celebrates its ninth edition with a programme featuring vocal experimentation as one of the key characteristics of the artists on the line-up, against a backdrop of rhythmic bases and careful performative staging.
In 2023, the festival is once again an open, prejudice-free invitation to discover the work of female and non-binary artists in the fields of electronic and experimental music, as well as contemporary audiovisuals. In line with previous editions, the festival’s programme continues to be based on an ecofeminist approach, addressing alternative ways of thinking, listening, learning and dancing.
This year’s festival also includes artists and special guests who bring us their magic from countries in Latin America and other places like Nigeria, Greece, Spain and the United Kingdom.
A cycle of contemporary cinema made by women, an audiovisual workshop and the morning family-programme “En Familia” complete the line-up. In addition, to mark the twentieth anniversary of La Casa Encendida, the album She Makes Noise is being released on vinyl this year. The record, a compilation of work by many of the artists who have performed at the festival since its inception in 2015, will be available for purchase at La Casa Encendida’s online shop, at the venue’s “information point” and in selected record shops. In addition to being an art object in itself, the vinyl production will bring together some of the performers and scenarios featured at She Makes Noise in the course of the festival’s past eight editions. Each of the album’s two sides will include a different concept, aimed at attentive listening and dancing.
She Makes Noise 2023 begins with Nwando Ebizie. A Nigerian living in London, this multidisciplinary artist presents her musical show The Swan for the first time in Spain. The spectacle brings together influences from Afrofuturism, experimental theatre and dance from the African diasporas, science fiction and research into neurodiversity. The result is a highly-charged performance that is connected to opera and the living arts without disregarding a carefully crafted electronic production. The album The Swan was produced by Matthew Herbert.
Venezuelan-born visual artist and filmmaker Valentina Alvarado introduces the workshop Secuencia Sonora (Doo-doo-doo-doo, doo-doo-doo-doo, doo-doo-doo) accompanying electronic producer Dania on the visual set. Together they present for the first time in Madrid their audiovisual proposal of expanded cinema in 16 mm, based on vocal experimentation and addressing the issue of migration. Lila Tirando a Violeta is a young Uruguayan composer and singer who synthesises different styles of electronic music with the folklore of her country. At this year’s festival, she will present her latest album – released on the prestigious Hyperdub label – in Spain. Finally, Bitter Babe will bring festival-goers the most danceable Latin rhythms, straight from the Bogotá-Medellín-Miami axis.
Sarahsson is vocal experimentation taken to the most extreme performative level. The festival is to host the premiere of this artist’s debut album The Horgenaith, with which she has become – within the framework of queer activism in the UK – one of the leading exponents of a new “industrial noise” style of music. Evita Manji will be closing the She Makes Noise 2023 series of concerts. Based in Athens, she has deconstructed electronic pop with her album Spandrel?, released by PAN. In Manji’s work, as in Sarahsson’s, there are repeated references to nature and a constant critique of climate change issues.
Premiere of five previously unreleased films in Spain
The She Makes Noise festival’s cinematic proposal features the first-time Spanish screening of five films addressing dissonant universes in which established patterns are brought into question. The series begins with the Spanish premiere of Martha Mechow‘s Losing Faith, the transgressive portrayal of a women’s commune in Italy. It continues with Jennifer Reeder’s new film Perpetrator, produced in the style of horror films and serial killer episodes, in which the director resumes her reflections on adolescence, the taboos associated with women’s bodies and the decadence of American society. The short-film series Encounters in the Third Phase will then serve as a prelude to the ecofeminist issues to be addressed later on, in the concerts by Sarahsson and Evita Manji. The first short is Elisa Strinna's The Antarctic Gardener, a creative documentary that speculates on the possibility of generating artificial ecosystems in extreme environments; this is followed by the portrayal of a Uruguayan migrant’s life and online communities in Vitória Monteiro’s My Friends Are the Birds. The third short film, directed by Frances Scott and Chu-Li Shewring, focuses on the world of pioneering composer of electronic music, Wendy Carlos.
The ”En Familia” cycle brings us two electronic music concerts for children and young people. Joining the festival from Barcelona to perform for the first time in Madrid, Adelaida will share her album Cántaro’s sensory and magical journey with the audience. Finally, Helena Gallardo, together with the visualist Laura Garrido, has prepared a concert based on images from the cult sci-fi film concert based on images from the cult sci-fi film Fantastic Planet.
She Makes Noise 2023 is curated by Playtime Audiovisuales: Natalia Piñuel Martín (music and activities) and Enrique Piñuel Martín (film).
