The Electrodomestics
“if they don’t like it, they can eat it!”
The Electrodomestics is a fictitious band and performance series created by Adham Hafez and Constanza Macras in 2017, and reflects on a certain notion of ‘home affairs’ by staging political debates, songs, dance and choreography within a kitchen show set up on stage. Inspired from the two artists’ love for hosting dinners, and their durational conversations as friends and collaborators. With urgent issues to be dealt with in nowadays Europe, this band for ‘domestic affairs’ investigates the domestic in the context of the household (the personal, the familial, the emotional, ...etc), and relates it to the larger context of the domestic affairs (the local, the national, the people...etc). Songs written as recipes, and recipes written as songs, performances of the band Electrodomestics take place within installation settings that combine sound, prepared food, installed text and video together with live performance in order to produce ephemeral performances of glam-rock and of pop simplicity and immediacy, while handling matters that are coined ‘urgent’ or ‘contemporary’. Inviting several dancers, musicians, and designers, the Electrodomestics premiered in Berlin’s “Verlin”, in 2017, and has been performed at several venues since then including Nordwind Festival, Savvy Gallery, Teatr im. J. Słowackiego w Krakowie.
The project imagines a band of strange and dandy musicians, who in an attempt to revive their music they stage a campy live cooking-show on stage, where the audience ends up in a collective dinner after cabaret-style performances, and invited guests in public interviews. This fictitious band investigates the concepts of cultural background and identity, in a context of cosmopolitan cities and migration. Based on the performers’ circles of family and friends, the group uses their social surroundings to explore phenomena and constructs like collectivity and nationality. Boundaries between the performers and the audience are made thin, opening a space for exchange, critical friction and togetherness. Original songs-lyrics were written by Adham Hafez along with several monologues, reflecting on anti-Arab racism, and western apathy towards non-white political struggle, and intersectionality. Each performance would host speed ‘talk-shows’ inviting guests in various fields from architecture, to music and cinema.
Electrodomestics can be positioned within a long practice of choreographer, composer and curator Adham Hafez’s engagement with cabaret as a format, along with HaRaKa Platform’s multiple projects investigating this fleeting genre. With an interest in the hybrid format and its multidisciplinary nature, as well as its vibrant history, cabaret both as a theme as well as strategy repeatedly emerged in the company’s creations and collaborations. For the Electrodomestics, a focus on cultural dialogue, and political urgency fueled this format with songs, sung-poems, interview format scenes, and choreographic reenactments. Equally, an investment in malleable forms such as cabaret are evident in alternative format-works by Dorky Park Company, in projects such as “ALBUM”. Both artists enter into creative conversations, staging multiple lives for their fictitious band.
Created by Adham Hafez and Constanza Macras
Production of Constanza Macras | Dorky Park, HaRaKa Platform
Music by and with Almut Lustig, Kristina Lösche-Löwensen
Lyrics and texts by Constanza Macras, Adham Hafez, Charlene Ibrahim, and others
Costumes by Reda Gharib, and Constanza Macras | Dorky Park
Performers include Maryam Palizban, Miki Shoji, Sonya Levin, and guests
Adham Hafez performing in The Electrodomestics (2017)
Constanza Macras (left), Adham Hafez (center, in black handmade faux-fur created by Reda Gharib for HaRaKa Platform and the Electrodomestics), and Jan Sebastian Suba (right), cooking on stage at The Electrodomestics (2017)