ensemble menajiri  is a diverse group of musicians, artists, dancers, and scientists. Our focus: interdisciplinary and sustainable art. Our goal: to create interactive performances that experiment with innovative formats and technologies, and raise awareness of how we engage with our surrounding ecosystem(s). Recent productions include LIQUID RAINBOW, a program of original music interwoven with contemporary dance and interactive lighting orchestra (ST VITO), and I SING THE BODY ELECTRIC, a multimedia performance of music, dance and video.

We are currently working on a new production, FAUNA-X: an experimental, multimedia artwork that explores the use of fairy tale as an alchemical process of creative transformation, and the role of art as a medium for raising awareness within our community about climate change. Using an interactive video installation that responds to the sounds of the environment, we invite the audience on an audiovisual walk through an imagined forest, interweaving music, story-telling, visual art, aroma-turgy (ambient smell) and dance into a total, immersive artwork. Guided by a female creatura, the Fauna-X, we encounter other-worldly flora and fauna that symbolically represent innermost fears, desires and memories; a forestial illusion of the human psyche. The setting draws attention to the interconnectedness of the human and natural worlds and evokes the Jungian concept of a nekyia, or night-journey, a path of transformation. 

Founded in 2018, ensemble menajiri is led by international artists Susanne Szambelan (cello), Michaela Catranis (composition/piano/visuals), and Anna-Katharina Schau (accordion). Recent highlights include our Hamburg debut of LIQUID RAINBOW at the TONALi18 festival, a featured performance at the BAUHAUS ARCHIV in Berlin-Germany, and the premiere of our most celebrated work, I SING THE BODY ELECTRIC at the Salon am Moritzplatz and the TONALi Saal in Hamburg.