2023
Dance moves were shown in the museum during the Let's Dance evenings, from Latin and waltz to roaring twenties and hip hop!
Dance project Let’s Dance
The dance project Let’ s Dance highlighted different dance styles and their origins using pieces from our unique museum collection. Making people move is in the DNA of the instruments in our museum. Dancing is something you do together and is a way of expressing your feelings, in happy and difficult times.
Travel through music and dance
During Let’s Dance, visitors were able to watch and listen to the stories of talented and experienced experts, dancers and musicians. It was a journey through music and dance from different continents and cultures, from the roaring twenties and Latin to hip-hop and the waltz. Each evening featured an introduction to the theme, a presentation and a dance demonstration. Visitors were also invited to hit the dance floor themselves and learn the dance moves!
Artists
We worked together with many talented artists, musicians, dancers and DJ’s for these dance evenings:
- Shailesh Bahoran & Illusionary Rockaz Company, Duda Paiva
- Spaceship Ensemble
- Big Band Utrecht
- Marfensel Osepa (k’ai organ)
- Natalia Rueda and Federico Stella (lindy hop, Roaring Twenties)
- Daphne and Elmer Schrik (waltz, latin)
- Ercelle Tatem (Caribbean waltz)
- Jaap Dekwaasteniet and the ‘100 años de tradición’ organ
- Hanneke Koolen (introductions)
Exhibition Make it Work
Behind every musical clock and every organ in Museum Speelklok there is a process in which material, costs, mechanics and how the instrument lasts as long as possible have been considered. The instruments take you into the past and provide insight into the choices the makers had to make. Due to the discussion about production processes and the way products are made nowadays, a lot of attention is now being paid to sustainability. In collaboration with guest curator Pao Lien Djie, Museum Speelklok brings together the work of three contemporary designers and makers of historical music machines. The Make it Work exhibition united the work of contemporary designers and historic instrument builders around three themes. Can looking to the past help us find ways to shape a more sustainable future?
Solutions in design
Designers Jelle Mastenbroek, Jesse Howard and Christien Meindertsma enter into a dialogue with the historical museum collection with their work. Jelle Mastenbroek’s Porcelain Piano is on display; an antique-looking cabinet with a piano full of porcelain plates that can make music. He was inspired by instruments that you also see in Museum Speelklok. Jesse Howard designs everyday objects, like a mixer and vacuum cleaner, in a way that the products can easily be repaired and even replicated. Christien Meindertsma studied different uses for wool from a particular flock of sheep in Rotterdam, looking at properties of the material as well as methods available for processing it. And wool have more to do with musical instruments than you might think!
Audio tour
Experience Museum Speelklok from a new perspective! During his studies at Design Academy Eindhoven, Simon Dogger lost his vision. But instead of quitting the programme, his new perspective became both the purpose and the object of his designs. Hear Simon talk about his world through this audio tour. What is his impression of the automatic instruments? What does he hear, and what associations do the instruments evoke?