Crippled Symmetries – Retama

Auditorio Hugo Lumbreras Miraflores, Peru

Crippled Symmetries – Retama
A Portrait of the Retama Women Composers’ Collective

Retama is the first Peruvian collective of women composers of contemporary music. Founded in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, the collective aims to make music by women composers more visible and to create spaces for interdisciplinary collaboration. In cooperation with Retama, Crippled Symmetries presents four commissioned works that bring indigenous ritual and musical traditions into contemporary artistic contexts. The programme also pays tribute to communities that were particularly marginalised during the COVID-19 pandemic in Peru.

Programme

Yemit Ledesma – 
The Travels of Aia Paec
 (2026)
for viola, bass clarinet, electronics and visuals

The work draws on Aia Paec, the creator god of the Moche culture of northern Peru. His travels become an allegory of the seasons, representing spring, abundance, fertility and harvest.

Wendolyne Guerra
 – Offerings (2026)

for viola, bass clarinet, electronics and visuals

The work draws on the ritual offerings of the Uros community and their connection with the sun, the earth and the waters of Lake Titicaca. The Uros traditionally inhabit floating islands made from totora, an aquatic plant.

Darlene Neyra
 – Condición de continuidad
 (2026)
for bass clarinet, viola, double bass and electronics

Claudia Sofía Alvarez
 – Íkaros II (2026)

for bass clarinet, viola, double bass, electronics and video

Íkaros, known as besho in the Shipibo-Konibo language, are sacred Indigenous chants central to the cultural universe of the Shipibo-Konibo people of the Peruvian Amazon. They express a relationship with nature based on listening, learning, caring and respect.

Ana Maria Rodriguez – The Frequency of Flowers  (2022)
for ceramic flutes, electronics and video

Ensemble KNM Berlin


Theo Nabicht, bass clarinet ｜ Kirstin Maria Pientka, viola ｜ Jonathan Heilbron, double bass

Thomas Bruns, sound/video

Ana Maria Rodriguez, keyboard/electronics
Macri Cáceres, ceramic flutes

Crippled Symmetries is a project by Ensemble KNM Berlin in cooperation with Busan International Contemporary Music Festival, the Department of Musicology at Freie Universität Berlin, Frequenz_Festival Kiel, Goethe-Institut Peru, Greek National Opera Alternative Stage, Kultur Büro Elisabeth, MaerzMusik / Berliner Festspiele and Studio Acht Taipei.
Funded by the Kulturstiftung des Bundes (German Federal Cultural Foundation) and the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media. With the kind support of the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion.