OPEN MONUMENT DAY Tribute to the Provadya Movement
90 minutes of Psychedelic experimental music-shorts

Once a year there is an effort to open up local monument buildings for a day. These places are usually locked up either physically (with a padlock) or financially (with an expensive ticket), but on this day they are open and free. This year they asked me to make a program at the historic Felix Meritis location on the Keizersgracht.

The Felix Meritis building opened its doors in 1788 with the intent to combine art and science. In the 19th century it became a legendary hall for classical music and in the 1950s it was the Communist party headquarters. In 1967 the Provadya counterculture was kickstarted there, events which fused experimental music and cinema... ushering in a new era. 

The name Provadya was derived from combining the word 'pro' (Latin: for) and 'vadja' (Hindi: music) = for the music. These events were like LSD trips, but instead of retreating from reality by dropping out into fantasy, they did the exact opposite—they flooded imagination into real life. Soon the Provadya spirit swept through the entire country spawning hallucinogenic bonfires everywhere.

For this evening we will collect together a 90 minute program of avant-garde short movies all fused with eclectic music, tapping into the psychedelic roots of the Provadya movement. It seems like a perfect collaboration—after all, isn't this what the underground cinemas are busy with—digging up forgotten or buried histories?