Watch ‘Hadra Immersive’ Merge Water, Sound & Sufism at LGW? 2024

Cover image by Maarten Mooijman

In November 2024, SceneNoise was live in Utrecht the Netherlands, at the 2024 Edition of Le Guess Who? - one of the world’s most forward-thinking alternative music festivals. On the opening night, while we anticipated avant-garde soundscapes and genre-defying performances (and found plenty of those throughout the four-day event), we were pleasantly surprised by the opening act, ‘Hadra Immersive’. A collaboration between the Amsterdam Andalusian Orchestra and multidisciplinary artist Arion de Munck, we watched in awe as ‘Hadra Immersive’ put the spotlight on an ancient northern Moroccan ceremony.

The Hadra is a Sufi ritual or gathering, characterised by collective recitation, chanting and spiritual practices to invoke a heightened state of presence through sound and music. For this performance, these sounds were visualised through cymatics - a phenomenon where sound waves generate visible patterns by vibrating through a medium.

In the case of ‘Hadra Immersive’, the Amsterdam Andalusian Orchestra and Arion de Munck chose to visualise these transcendental sounds in a central basin of water, which both the musicians and audience gathered around in concentric circles. As sound waves from the ritual vibrated through the water, intricate patterns emerged, offering a mesmerising, visual counterpart to this centuries-old spiritual tradition.

A co-production by the Amsterdam Andalusian Orchestra, Ombak-Lab, and Meervaart, ‘Hadra Immersive’ stood out as a highlight of Le Guess Who? 2024. Now, you can experience the stunning performance yourself, streaming in full on Le Guess Who?’s official YouTube channel.