Drift takes you on a journey through time and space, where languages mix, where live percussion meets live voice, where the ancient cohabits with the present. Ancient tales of exile and love re-emerge to shadow today’s lives and losses.

Internationally renowned performer Caroline Bergvall teams up with experimental Norwegian percussionist Ingar Zach and Swiss visual artist Thomas Köppel and together they invent a language of extremes: from the ancient pool of English and Nordic poetry to the lyrics of pop songs and damning human rights reports into contemporary sea migrants’ disaster. The 3D treatment of the texts by Köppel transforms the narrative into a dense, abstract canvas of drifting language mass, enhancing the hypnotic quality of the work. Inspired by the anonymous Anglo-Saxon poem ‘The Seafarer’, Drift acts as a reminder of the endless changes undergone by the English language in its many histories.

Creative team

Voice, texts, concept: Caroline Bergvall

Live & treated percussion: Ingar Zach

Visual treatment & programming: Thomas Köppel

Dramaturgy: Michèle Pralong

Produced with Sound & Music. Supported by Music Norway and the Norwegian Embassy, London. Originally commissioned for the festival lost.las.gru by Gru/Transtheatre, Geneva.