Languages: Dutch and English
What does it mean to be a young woman in today’s world?
Is it musical poetry, poetic music, or poetry and music combined? Literary jazz? A Bosch GBM 6 RE cordless drill? It really doesn’t matter anyway. The bottom line is: in the performance, OERHERT, language and music are forged together in a beautiful way. Poet Astrid Haerens, musician Mariske Broeckmeyer, and cellist Jasmijn Lootens set out to find the musicality in language—and they wonderfully succeeded.
Well what did you expect? Haerens’ poetry collection of the same name, Oerhert, already won the Poetry Debut Prize 2023, and was nominated for the Herman de Coninck Prize as well as the C. Buddingh’ Prize in 2023. Haerens found Broeckmeyer and Lootens shared the same love of jazz and experimentation. This led to the impressive album, Anger’s Family Tree, earlier this year. Now, they’re back with an impressive listening performance in which—just as in the book of poetry—themes such as femininity, physicality, and boundaries are central.
“***** (…) a convincing debuut[.] Haerens lets you feel what it means to be a young woman in today’s world.”
– review of Oerhert (Astrid Haerens) by De Standaard
Credits
Astrid Haerens: voice, script
Mariske Broeckmeyer: keys, vocals, electronics
Jasmijn Lootens: cello, electronics