Hide to Show

It has been over ten years since Nadar Ensemble and composer Michael Beil first met in sun-splashed Tel Aviv. Now they are creating a scenic composition for the third time. In “Hide to Show”, Beil questions and highlights the mesmerizing world of the internet. By confronting the live musicians with audio and video recordings, he dissects their actions on stage into image and sound. These disconnected elements become building blocks, which the composer can rearrange, glue together and stack on top of each other at will. The listeners – who are invariably also spectators – thus find themselves in a labyrinth of new perspectives. Wonder, confusion, and alienation reign supreme on a virtuoso, often catchy soundtrack of live music and electronics.

The musicians hide behind their costumes, curtains that go up and down, and recordings of themselves, so that the real person remains invisible after all. A parallel with social media is quickly made. Hidden behind your profile picture or avatar, you can appear in the virtual world as an individual without ever really showing yourself. This is also the case in “Hide to Show”: while the musicians are alone in their dressing rooms, the audience oversees their interconnectedness, neatly in sync. In real life, everything is more complicated and everyone is imperfect.