2023-06-29 08:48:16
From August 17th to 20th, 2023 the festival BLOCKHEIDE LEUCHTET will take place in the Waldviertel: curator LEO BETTINELLI has a background in contemporary music and is originally from Argentina. In an interview with Jürgen Plank, BETTINELLI talks about the special features of a festival for light and music, about the location near Gmünd and the networking with other festivals in Lower Austria.
How did the Blockheide lights festival come about?
Leo Bettinelli: Coming from the contemporary music scene, I’ve been an organizer all my life. I did festivals in Buenos Aires, Berlin and Barcelona and the contemporary arts festival in Vienna Spoiled Children organized. I landed in Austria about ten years ago and have been involved with light art ever since. I have worked with light installations all over Europe. 6 years ago I received a promotion from quarter festivals get to see an exhibition of my work at Blockheide Nature Park close. It was initially planned as a small project, but it got more attention than expected and suddenly we had a thousand visitors on the site. The festival worked well and then we decided to continue. Since then we have been working with the federal, municipal and state governments.
Why did you switch from music to light?
Leo Bettinelli: I just dealt with light, it’s a lot of fun. For me it was an interesting change, because I was intellectually involved with music, I just started to build the light installations. That’s how I reached a different audience. Now I build light installations that are really big and I’m at festivals that are attended by hundreds of thousands of people.
“THE MUSICIANS VISIT THE DIFFERENT LIGHT INSTALLATIONS AND PLAY EVERYWHERE ON THE SITE”
To what extent is music part of Block heather lights up?
Leo Bettinelli: Music is a big part of the festival. We only work with acoustic music and with unusual instruments. Also with contemporary music and improvised music. For us it is important that the music is calm, we don’t want to have stages, but all musicians are constantly in motion. The musicians visit the various light installations and play everywhere on the site. And an important part are also the improvisations of the performers. They meet each other on the way and this is how performative improvisations are created. Our goal is that the audience doesn’t come to the festival, sit down and consume, but that they also move and find their own way to have a beautiful experience.
Image (c) Leo Bettinelli
You spoke of extraordinary instruments. Which special instruments are in use this year?
Leo Bettinelli: For example didgeridoo or handpan, these are instruments that the people in the country may not know so well. Or we have old instruments like a hurdy-gurdy, but also completely normal instruments like clarinet, bass, trumpet or double bass. But they are not played conventionally, but by musicians who come from the improvising music scene.
Which musicians did you invite to this year’s festival?
Leo Bettinelli: This year Elisabeth Kelvin plays the bass clarinet, she comes from Australia and lives in Vienna. In addition, the singer Vera Baumann from Switzerland, Marcel Hutter plays handpan and Brigitte Lienbacher plays interesting instruments such as the lyre, dulcimer and the shruti box. Eva-Maria Karbacher from Switzerland will play the saxophone. The festival lasts four days and we have two different programs: on Thursday and Friday and on Saturday and Sunday. If you want to visit us twice, you can see two different programs.
Do the musicians play while the light installations are shown?
Leo Bettinelli: Exactly. The site is open from 8 p.m. to midnight and the performers are active between 9 p.m. and 11 p.m. They play at the individual stations. There are various performers, such as Aka Frantschesko from the performance group Slow Forward. He is the slowest man in the world and moves very slowly. A group from England will perform with hand-held light objects. And at the campfire there is also a storyteller.
“THROUGH THE FESTIVAL, PEOPLE GET INTO NATURE, EXPERIENCE NATURE AND RESPECT IT”
Light is the counterpoint to night and too much light naturally disturbs nature, such as insects, keyword light pollution. How would you describe this aspect in connection with Block heather lights up see?
Leo Bettinelli: A few people criticize our festival, for us I can say: a jazz festival is for people who love jazz and a rock festival for others who love rock. Festivals with light are relevant for everyone. Everyone can enjoy this, including families with small children, right up to grandparents.
In terms of environmental protection: we take very good care of the natural park. We play in the evening, but there is no dancing and no loudspeakers. Through the festival, people come out into nature, experience nature and respect it. The Blockheide Nature Park is a nature reserve of around 200 hectares, of which we only use around 10 hectares. People also come here during the day, the nature there knows the situation that many people are out and about. So we don’t disturb nature with our festival.
We will deal even more with nature conservation in the future and use the festival as a platform for this. Many people come to Blockheide, because it is beautiful there, we want to inform these people about environmental protection in the future.
The press release states that the location in the Waldviertel region is important to you and that there are connections to other festivals such as the scratch sound gives. What are the links?
Leo Bettinelli: For us this is Schrammelklang Festival a great inspiration because it uses the natural scenery for the performances. There are several relevant festivals in the northern Waldviertel. Waldviertel tourism started a campaign for all festivals in the region this year, always with a focus on nature and environmental protection. Although the Waldviertel is a somewhat marginalized region and people only come for vacation and are a bit afraid that it might be cold, a lot happens here in the summer. A cool network was built up with the other festivals.
Blockheide shines in 2020 (c) Andreas Biedermann
“WE WORK WITH PROJECTIONS AND ILLUSIONS THAT CAN BE CREATED WITH LIGHT”
Is there one for you Highlightin the truest sense of the word, from the early years of Block heather lights up?
Leo Bettinelli: I can not say that. We have between 16 and 18 stations, small, medium-sized and very large stations and there is something special every year. What is very cool about light installations is that they are very diverse. We work with projections and illusions that can be created with light. This year there is an artist from England who works with very fast flashing light, the flashing is invisible to the eye. Combined with ropes moving fast and you can see colors projected on the ropes.
What else is planned?
Leo Bettinelli: The artist group SpaceTimePirates from Germany is building a light installation on site with things that they have saved: many recycled objects, such as motors or sensors that react to people’s movements. In the long term we want the artists to create something related to our location, similar to artists in residence.
What kind of feedback have you gotten from audiences over the last few years?
Leo Bettinelli: Great! People are really happy, it’s very special because there isn’t much in that direction, especially in the countryside. In recent years we have met many people who really wanted to visit the festival. It is no longer regional, the visitors come from all over Austria and also from neighboring countries.
As an organizer, what differences have you noticed between Argentina, Spain and Austria?
Leo Bettinelli: As an organizer, you can organize and stage a festival in Austria with good financial conditions. It’s very difficult to get grants in Buenos Aires and Barcelona unless you’re in Mainstream traveling. When I started in Austria, I did my festivals with almost no financial means. At Block heather lights up we first had a promotion from quarter festival and since then by national and international institutions. For me as an organizer, that’s the big difference that many don’t see here: although all artists are underpaid, the situation here is very privileged compared to other countries.
Many thanks for the interview.
Jurgen Plank
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Block heather lights up
17.8. – 20.8.
Blockheide Nature Park
Gmünd-Waldviertel
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Links:
Block heather lights up
Blockheide shines (Facebook)
Block heath shines (Instagram)
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