Nachtelijke Dwaling #5
Ruchama Noorda
15 November 2014, begins promptly at 8 pm – midnight, doors open at 7:30 pm.
Oude Kerk, Oudekerksplein, Amsterdam
Online tickets: 5 euro
oudekerk.nl
Nachtelijke Dwalingen consists of bimonthly, performative events that will take place in and around the Oude Kerk. These ‘dwalingen’ are organized by different artists and each have their own starting point, in which the hidden, forgotten and obscure aspects of the Oude Kerk as well as her environment the red light district, will be examined. Invited by the Oude Kerk and curated by Julia Geerlings with the collaboration of Rieke Vos, each artist has been asked to create a new work concentrated in a nocturnal walking route, examining the rapidly developing area of the Oude Kerk. Each Nachtelijke Dwaling will conclude with music by Red Light Radio.
For Nachtelijke Dwaling # 5, Ruchama Noorda will lead a walking tour and clean up crew through the Wallen and circling the Dam, the ancient trade and transport hub, and site of the naked Anabaptist uprising of 1535. The tour will map the secret history of Amsterdam via the lines of spiritual intensity, persecution, transcendence and immersion in the flesh that criss-cross at the city’s heart. The ‘dwaling’ will include breathing exercises and moments of silent meditation. Inside the supermarket housed in the Mercurius Building – named for Mercury, the Roman god of commerce, boundaries, trickery and thieves – we will pause at the spot where the network of ley lines on which Amsterdam is built converge. Our route will shadow at an angle the route around the Oude Kerk taken by the Silent Circumambulation (Stille Omgang), the Catholic ritual that takes place every year to commemorate the Miracle of the Host (1345). The ‘dwaling’ begins at the Oude Kerk with an organ recital composed and performed by Gunnar Gunnsteinsson. Wear warm clothes and bring a blanket. Please refrain from drinking coffee or alcohol at least 3 hours prior to the event.
Ruchama Noorda (Leiden, 1979) studied at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague and the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam. Since 2009 Noorda works on her ReForm research at the PhDArts at the University of Leiden, which focuses on the influence of the early 20th century Lebensreform (Life Reform) movement. In her practice Noorda recycles elements of Reform practices such as dance, diet and ritual practices in performance and installation works that both engage and challenge contemporary communitarian and counter-cultural aspirations, practices and beliefs. By highlighting the mystical and magical elements within the Reform tradition along with other undigested and ‘irrational’ material her works perform a séance-function- excavating, the repressed and buried histories within the Modern. Noorda has exhibited in many group shows and solo exhibitions including Museum De Lakenhal, Museum Het Domein, Kunstvereniging Diepenheim, High Desert Test Sites, Stadthausgalerie Münster and W139.
