Since 1999, Francis Alÿs has recorded children at play around the world in a growing series of videos. From flying kites in Afghanistan and playing knucklebones in Nepal, to dancing with oranges in Denmark, children’s ability to transcend difficult environments through imagination forms a thread that connects many of these films. 

In this concert, four composers respond with new works for the Cikada Ensemble, diving into the rhythms, logics, and emotional stakes of play, as serious as it is fleeting, as politically specific as it is universal.

Kim Myhr sees children’s games as acts of total presence—not light distractions but intense and absorbing moments. His music invites adult listeners to reconnect with the immediacy, rawness, and wonder of childhood.

Pierre Slinckx’s #29 builds on a haunting image: children climbing and hurling themselves down dusty slopes of mining waste in Lubumbashi inside of discarded tires. Like small Sisyphus figures, they repeat the ascent—a cycle that echoes both the persistence of colonisation and the hidden costs of extractivism. Slinckx responds with a fractured echo of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”—childhood innocence thrown into stark relief by the weight of the landscape.

Aleksandra Gryka hears play as quiet resistance, as connection. Her music lingers where body, environment and imagination blur. Each film inspires a distinct constellation of instruments, echoing the fleeting emotional textures in Alÿs’s images.

Angélica Castelló’s Juglariceando lets the musicians play—quite literally. Using a score built like a card game, she invites unpredictability, accidents and surprise. 

Can music sound like play feels?

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Tickets and more information at Ultima

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Films by: Francis Alÿs

Music by: Kim Myhr, Pierre Slinckx, Aleksandra Gryka, Angélica Castelló

Cikada Ensemble: Magnus Söderberg (double bass), Torun Stavseng (cello), Bendik Foss (viola), Sara Övinge (violin), Karin Hellqvist (violin), Kenneth Karlsson (piano), Bjørn Rabben (percussion), Rolf Borch (clarinet), Anne Karine Hauge (flute) and Christian Eggen (conductor)

Produced by: Cikada Ensemble, Astrup Fearnley Museet and Ultima Oslo Contemporary Music Festival

In collaboration with: Cikada Ensemble, Warsaw Autumn, Wien Modern, Concertgebouw Brugge, Musea Brugge – BRUSK, MAK – Museum für Angewandte Kunst Wien and Ultima Oslo Contemporary Music Festival

Supported by: Arts Council Norway, Music Norway, Government of Flanders, Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation, Embassy of Austria in Oslo, Stiftelsen Thomas Fearnley, Heddy og Nils Astrup

A special thanks to: Finella Hannigan and Alÿs Studio