We are moving too fast. Politics moves too fast, the news moves too fast, and no one takes the time anymore to spend a quiet time listening to a piece of music, reading a thick book, or listening and watching slow art for 36 hours at the Bruges Concert Hall. So the concert hall in Bruges is organising a festival titled Slow(36h). Intriguing, because does that even sell, slow art?
They seemed to doubt it themselves for a while. In the programme book, they warned in advance: as a visitor, you should not want to experience everything, as there is a chance you will fall into a kind of inertial vortex. If that hadn't already happened at the opening event, which consists of a record attempt: how long can a group of people do over a 50-metre stretch. The record is said to stand at 3 hours. In any case, the organisers hope not to break it, otherwise the rest of the programme will run out of time.
We had wanted to present all this to you in a fun online Q&A with the creators, via a fast-paced, modern Google plus live hangout, but that proved difficult. Three men with an HD video stream over the same cable from the same office, microphones recording each other instead of themselves, we were suddenly back in the last century. So the connection was a touch too slow for the fast-paced news we wanted to deliver. That's why the dance programmer dropped out of the movie.
Which does not alter the fact that it an exciting event can be, right there in Bruges. Especially those who have already got a bit bored of the city's tourist centre and also want to know what is really happening: go and experience it. Just to hear for 10 hours all the psalms sung, integral, slow. Or to see a dancer who for once takes slowness as the starting point, instead of floating, fast grace.
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