The Sadness brings together a trio of performers around Sadcore music and the genre of ’Sad Rap', a home grown musical style that emerged on Soundcloud and other music platforms over the last years. Mostly self-produced, the genre combines emo-style lyrics that speak about depression, often with references to death and suicide, set to melancholic instrumentals and hip hop beats. During the performance the performers compose the music live using an app designed especially for the project. Their self-written lyrics merge with pulsating pop rhythms and heavy bass, their voices becoming one with the machine.

Following in the footsteps of Extended Play, created in 2016, The Sadness explores live music making as a collective act that forges new connections, between the present and possible futures, between bodies and words, between humans and the nonhuman.

BIO

Ula Sickle is a choreographer and performer based in Brussels. From a background in contemporary dance, she works across disciplines and often in collaboration with artists from other domains such as the visual arts and contemporary music. Her interest in looking for an alternative to the cannon of contemporary dance, has led her to seek out performers who embody other movement histories. Ula Sickle has been presented in many international venues and festivals such as Kunstenfestivaldesarts, ImPulsTanz and TanzQuartier (Vienna), Teatr Nowy (Warsaw), Zodiak & Moving in November festival (Helsinki), Reykjavik Dance festival (Iceland), Tanz im August (Berlin), or les Rencontres chorégraphiques internationales de Seine-Saint- Denis.

ulasickle.com