Biography

Karlijn Hamer is a music theater maker, performer, and singer. Her work takes the form of an immersive audio installation in which the audience is not positioned in front of the performance but right in the middle of it. She seeks a connection between music, body, and space, thinking beyond the conventional boundaries of a theater hall. Her vocal approach has a physical and spatial dimension, with an affinity for fysical theatre as an artistic movement. In her work, Karlijn aims to create space for pain, fear, the darker sides of being human, for unheard voices and emotions that have no other place to be expressed. Music is the guiding force; it creates an emotional space, a ritual in which she and the audience embark on something difficult together.

She previously created Kiss the Earth, you scum, exploring how women can claim space for their anger, incorporating influences from flamenco, punk music, and floor plates that amplified every stomp to create its own beat. In Siriana, mijn vriendin, she addressed the difference in perception and experience of her childhood friend with autism through an installation featuring wheels and beads, forming a meditative soundscape.

"Karlijn’s work is unique and best described as a musical journey. With reminiscences of Björk or Laurie Anderson, she creates atmospheric installations where the visitor drifts through landscapes of sound. The result is an almost spiritual experience, producing a completely distinctive form of music theater."
— Jury of the Operadagen Award 2019 on ZOG.

Artistic project

NYX is the female personification of the night. This underappreciated primal force from Greek mythology, feared and elusive, gave birth to many children, including the light.
NYX is a live audio walk by Stichting Karlijn Hamer, featuring the darkening landscape at dusk as its main protagonist. We consciously pause at twilight, as an act of resistance against an increasingly fast-paced and illuminated world. This ritualistic expedition takes place outdoors, preferably a forest, where six melodious female voices from vocal ensemble KOBRA, joined by a spatial electronic music installation, invite the audience to reflect on the world between day and night, light and darkness.
In this hazy state, boundaries dissolve, allowing a dialogue between the inner and outer world. Even the line between a body and its surroundings fades. According to legends, twilight is when a person can merge with a bat, a wolf, or mist.
Seeking darkness offers a non-hierarchical experience. Without sight, you become formless, freed from function, and guided by your surroundings. Surrendering to the night becomes an act of liberation.
NYX embodies the invisible and ambiguous, encouraging participants to surrender control and embrace life’s uncertainties. The project features compositions by Karlijn Hamer and Mathijs de Valk, performed by KOBRA, and text by Marie Groothof. It is created in collaboration with Strijbos&vanRijswijk.

Format: live performance audio landscape

Size of audience: 100 people

Specific location: into the woods, spaces with less light pollution

Timing / duration: night performance during twilight / approx. 1h30