The cultural program of the second Berlin Book Fair begins with a musical performance by the theatre project KatlZ Riga.
30 April 19: 00
Immanuel Church
Immanuelkirchstr. 4 10405 Berlin
Tickets: https://fienta.com/de/perdre-le-nord-171834
The performance is conceived as a mutual improvisation between two artists, based on a score of several French idioms. These expressions are unrelated and meaningful only to the performers’ internal work. To the uninitiated, they sound like a kind of “trick”: the literal meaning of the words is deceptive, concealing a different, truer meaning.
Artist Maxim Isaev plays the role of the “uninitiated” in the performance, visualizing the interpretation of each idiom. His actions are accompanied by a musical composition by Alexey Aygi—an emotional decoding of the verbal riddle. This is another part of the performance’s score—a musical one. Thus, the dialogue between musician and artist becomes an attempt to unravel the reality behind the visual images.
The performance references Pieter Bruegel’s famous painting “Netherlands Proverbs” and invites viewers to participate in deciphering the musical and visual images. The musical performance was first presented in the Baltic countries and Finland in late November and early December 2025. Maxim Isaev and Alexey Aygi first met in France in the summer of 2025 to create Perdre Le Nord.