A student project group led by Professor Dr. Andrea Lutz-Kluge from the Department of Social and Health Services at the Ludwigshafen University of Applied Sciences participated in the musical project "Complaint Choirs" of the Ludwigshafen Art Association. The "Chor der Ludwigshafener Studis" provided the musical prelude to this series on April 11, 2019 at Maxstraße 29.
From April to June 2019, the Kunstverein Ludwigshafen, in cooperation with the Ludwigshafen University of Applied Sciences, is organizing a musical project of a special kind: as part of the art performances by the German-Finnish artist couple Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen and supported by the musicians* Coco SaFir, Roland and Bernhard Vanecek, four complaint choirs in Ludwigshafen will express their grievances on various topics loudly singing during this time. This series of flash mob events kicked off with the Complaints Choir of Ludwigshafen Students: on the evening of April 11, 2019, students from all departments lined up on the outside steps of the university building at Maxstraße 29 to voice their complaints under the motto "Students love their LU! Does LU love its students?" to make the student concerns in Ludwigshafen heard in a rhythmic way: In addition to demands that were clearly aimed at the situation at the university - functioning photocopiers, clean toilets, a student kitchen or a larger cafeteria - the students loudly chanted their longing for more green spaces, better bike paths, more parking space, pubs and cafés into the urban space.
In her welcoming address, Professor Dr. Ellen Bareis, Vice President for Studies and Teaching, Quality Management, and Art and Culture, took up some of the motifs of the Complaints Choir and thanked Barbara Auer, Director of the Kunstverein Ludwigshafen, for "this impulse and this project, which brings together the departments of Studies & Teaching and Art & Culture in the best possible way" and further promoted the exchange between the university, the city and cultural institutions that had begun several years ago.
Chanting the verses and the catchy refrain "Ludwigshafen/We are not heard/We lack a beautiful campus/What disturbs us mightily..." over and over again, the musical-artistic society then processed to the Kunstverein at Bismarckstrasse 44-48, where director Barbara Auer opened the actual vernissage.
After the musical kick-off on April 11, the complaint choirs continue with a series of thematically focused choirs, each with several flashmob-like performances at selected locations in Ludwigshafen throughout the summer semester. Thus, following the "Choir of Ludwigshafen Students," a "Choir of Work" (workshops on May 4 and 5 from 12:00-18:00, BASF-Gesangverein, Froschlache 11), a "Choir of Housing Seekers" (workshops on May 8 and 22 from 18.00-21-00 at Maxstraße 48, room A01) and a "Choir for Biodiversity" (Workshops on 14.06. from 16.00-20.00 o'clock and/or on 15.06. from 10.00-18.00 o'clock, in the art association Ludwigshafen) their voices.
The members of the University of Applied Sciences Ludwigshafen are not only active as choir members. Rather, students of the course "Aesthetic Practice" in the bachelor's degree program in social work under the direction of Professor Dr. Andrea Lutz-Kluge accompany the entire project, collect "complaints," advertise the actions and are involved as mediators in all "complaint choirs." "In this way, they get to know the artistic concept so that they can later use it in practical fields of social work," explains Lutz-Kluge. Two students from the course are already in the process of independently setting up a "complaint choir" at the SOS Children's Village Palatinate in Eisenberg.
Background: What are complaint choirs?
The Finnish phrase "Valituskuoro" describes situations in which a group of people complain simultaneously, almost impulsively, about a condition. Literally translated into German, it could be titled "complaint choir". From this idiom, the German-Finnish artist couple Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen developed their concept in 2005 and initiated the first Complaints Choir in Birmingham. The basic idea was to collect the complaints of the citizens of Birmingham, to transform them into song lyrics and to set them to music. For more information on the Complaint Choirs, visit: www.complaintschoirs.de
The Complaint Choirs project in Ludwigshafen is supported by BASF SE's TOR4 cultural sponsorship program. With the impulse question "Why is everything actually getting better?", BASF SE opens up a socio-critical discourse and supports a total of 16 projects from the fields of music, dance, literature and visual arts in the Rhine-Neckar metropolitan region. For more information, visit www.basf.de/tor4
Specialist contact:
Ludwigshafen University of Applied Sciences
Department of Social and Health Services
Prof. Dr. Andrea Lutz-Kluge
Tel. 0621/5203-543
E-mail: andrea.lutz-kluge@ 8< SPAM protection, please remove >8 hwg-lu.de
