Hot Mass

HOT MASS places eleven men inside a glass sauna to perform a newly composed mass. At first, the music behaves like a system: clean, vertical, disciplined, designed to hold. But the sauna corrupts the format. Heat enters the score. The voice becomes a live negotiation between control, exposure and collapse. The mass and the sauna meet as two architectures of regulation: one organising bodies through sound, belief and collective order, the other staging nakedness as ritual, pressure and consent.

HOT MASS asks what masculinity is today, not as an identity to explain, but as a choreography of signals: strength, softness, stamina, shame, beauty, competition, care. What happens when these signals start interfering with each other? What remains when unity becomes unstable, and power can no longer rely on being solid?

INFO

HOT MASS is performed inside a functioning modular glass sauna, adaptable to white cubes, urban spaces, black boxes or classical theatres. Minimum sauna surface: 5 x 4 metres. Maximum temperature: 60°C. A changing or transition space allows controlled audience entry.

Audience setup is flexible: frontal, semicircular or circular. Spectators may observe, move closer or enter the sauna. Capacity depends on venue and configuration, from intimate installation-performance to larger theatrical setting.

PARTNERS

Concept, direction & light design: Aïda Gabriëls

Composition & libretto: to be confirmed

Cast: 11 singers

Production: oester & Muziektheater Transparant

Looking for coproducers & venues.

TIMELINE

Première: summer/fall 2028