biegungen im ausland w/ Metal Illusion via Live Stream / Friday, 11.6.2021

Metal Illusion is the duo project of vibraphonist and visual artist Els Vandeweyer and the pianist and sound artist Rieko Okuda. Since 2016 they have been performing in small clubs in Berlin, combining objects and sounds with physical movement. Metal Illusion incorporates installations, dolls, costumes, a 25-meter textile collage score, light and film fragments. They create a world where dragons rule, a realm where metal debris comes to life or an underworld where fish have their fun. Each performance creates a new story, inspired by the space and the new techniques they investigate. The music is the result of movement. The light creates illusions.

Els Vandeweyer is a Belgian vibraphonist, percussionist, and composer currently living in Berlin. After studying classical percussion in Antwerp and jazz vibraphone in Brussels and Oslo, Els co-founded the IMI Kollektief, whose critically acclaimed album Snug as a Gun was released on Clean Feed in 2006. Today, Els plays regularly in Berlin, including solo performance, group improvisation, and contemporary music.

In 2017, her composition Landscape, a 25-meter-long textile that functions as a mobile graphic score, was performed in Berlin as part of the Kontraklang series on contemporary music. Past projects include a duo with Fred Van Hove, Quat (with Fred Van Hove, Paul Lovens, and Martin Blume), Andromeda Mega Express Orchstra, Pascal Niggenkemper´s Vision 7, the Serenus Zeitblom Oktett and collaborations with Hans Unstern en Real Geizt.

Recent projects are Metal Illusion (a shadow play with Rieko Okuda), Kudu (with Ignaz Schick and Klaus Kürvers), participation in the SFO- orchestra of Georg Graewe and a cooperation with Theater Zuidpool in Antwerp. With “Debut” she released her first album under her own name. (90%Wasser, 2019)

Rieko Okuda is a pianist and a composer from Japan. She began to play Classical music at the age of 3. She also studied Music Therapy at Doshisha Women College. Music Therapy led her into Contemporary music and Improvised music. After she graduated from the college, she moved to USA to study Jazz music. She fell right into the Jazz scene in USA, performing with some of the great American Jazz musicians (Bob Mintzer, Jon Faddis, John Fedchock etc) at several jazz festivals such as North Texas Jazz Festival, Nortredam Jazz Festival to name a few. A couple of years later, she got interested in Free Jazz and Improvised music while she was in Phliladelphia.

In 2017 and 2018, she got the residency in Elektronik Music Studio (EMS) in Stockholm, Sweden. This residency experiences inspired her to Electro-Acoustic field, and she started to invite the electronics to her piano solo pieces. Her first Electro-Acoustic solo album “Paranorm” was released from Japanese record lable, Athor Harmonics, on Feburary 2018. “Paranorm” was performed at Koncertkirken Blagards Plads (DK), Ausland, FLUX Festival (DE), and Vardklockans Församling (SE).