NIKOLA LUTZ

zek

[зек - Russian convict] is a series of events that will unfold in Stuttgart between May 2024 and April 2025. The series commemorates the fate of Masha Kalesnikava, Maxim Znak and other political prisoners. Musical reflections of texts written in prison form a thread from prisoners to freedom, self-determined communication and survival. zek actively stands in the way of forgetting and nourishes the public resonance space of memory, which can be their only possible protection.

zek #1 Opening of the series with music by Carlos Gutiérrez, Nikola Lutz and the trio encuentros musicales.

Carlos Gutiérrez [traditional Bolivian instruments]
Tatiana López [traditional Bolivian instruments]
Nikola Lutz [electronics, saxophone]

zek #2 “Entre Líneas” - Experimental multimedia micro-opera by Jorge Chikiar for performers, objects and electric agitators

Jorge Chikiar [electronics, performance]
Nikola Lutz [electronics, performance, objects]
Iván García [recorded voice]

zek #3 - Texts from the Zekamerone resonate with the life story of Lukax Santana, who himself was a political prisoner in Chile and then lived in exile in the UK for a long time. César Bernal's contribution recalls traditional methods of maintaining hope and identity.

Lukax Santana [conception, percussion]
César Bernal Nikola Lutz [conception, double bass]
Nikola Lutz [electronics, saxophone]

zek #4 - In his composition "Tattoo", Jug Marković treats the zekamerone as a complete work. With Schulhoff's duo for violin and cello, Dietlind Mayer and Céline Papion bring Znak's work into resonance with the music of persecuted artists. Nikola Lutz reflects on the social background of the emergence of violence in a short lecture on the book "Sociología del masacre" by Manuel Guerrero Antequera, published in 2023. This theoretical encounter with the sociogenesis of the perpetrator leads to the aesthetic reflection of an individual perpetrator character in the world premiere of the German version of "Der Neffe" from Zekamerone by Maxim Znak.

Jug Marković [composition, electronics]
Céline Papion [violincello]
Dietlind Mayer [violin]
Nikola Lutz [lecture, electronics]

zek #5 - at the end of the five-part series zek by Nikola Lutz, Klaus Sebastian Dreher takes a selection of six texts from the Zekamerone and sets them to music in his "Episodes from Prison" (2025 / world premiere). Natasha López - singer of the Trio vis-á-vis, of which Maria Kalesnikava was originally a member - wrote the poem "MASCHA" for Kalesnikava 2023, which Klaus Sebastian Dreher and Nikola Lutz set to music together in an improvisation. In "Ururu" (2025 / world premiere) for electronics and voice, Nikola Lutz deals with another text from the Zekamerone, which makes it possible to experience the prison as an auditory environment.

Xia Yuan [percussion]
Mathilde Durafour [percussion]
Klaus Dreher [percussion]
Nikola Lutz [saxophone, electronics]
Natasha Lopez [poem]

musik by

Klaus Sebastian Dreher, Nikola Lutz

04/24/2025
7:30 pm

Treffpunkt Rotebühlplatz
Robert-Bosch-Saal
Rotebühlplatz 28
70173 Stuttgart

sponsored by

SKAM e.V., Musikfonds, City of Stuttgart

in cooperation with

FREEMASCHA.ORG
Theater Atelier
Gedok Stuttgart
vhs Stuttgart

with kind permission of the publishers vremja and Scotland Street Press
English translation by Jim and Ella Dingley

Maxim Znak, “Zekamerone. Stories from Prison“
Translated from the Russian by Henriette Reisner and Volker Weichsel
© of the German edition Suhrkamp Verlag AG, Berlin, 2023

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zek #5 Perkussionsinstrument, Foto: Nikola Lutz

Lukax Santana improvising with broken glass — zek #3 - Lukax Santana, Foto: Nikola Lutz

Jorge Chikiar with a part of his instrument — zek # 2 Jorge Chikiar

Screenshot aus zek #4 Der Neffe / Plemjannitschek — zek #4 Projektfoto, Foto: Nikola Lutz

Projektfoto zek zeigt traditionelle bolivianische Instrumente und einen Saxofonbogen — Projektfoto zek, Foto: Nikola Lutz

Projektfoto zek zeigt einen Screenshot des nota online spaces — Projektfoto zek, Foto: Nikola Lutz

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