DOME_LIVE 038 The Horsefly, the Hornet, and the Longhorn Beetle

This programme is held in Hungarian. 

Three bug-like fellows set out on a journey: the mad wasp-magician, the begging bloodsucker, and the forgetful mystic. They buzz, stomp, dream—and we spy on them through a caterpillar-chewed leaf. What would you see if you were an insect? What would you hear if your six legs tapped restlessly among the drops of dew? 

This musical performance is different every time. It always consists of ten to fifteen episodes, but we select them from a larger pool, and even the order of identical parts varies. Like walking in the forest: you never see the same thing twice. One evening the pupae awaken, another time the lily-of-the-valley bells begin to chime, and on a third occasion shadows detach themselves from the characters. The stories fit together modularly, like leaves on branches—always forming a different pattern, yet each combination becomes a meaningful whole. 

The sound material is built from recordings of real insect buzzing, the musical noises of percussion instruments, and electronic sounds. The voice of Adél Jordán guides the audience between three characters, while the Sound Dome’s 36 speakers swirl the sounds around you as if you were inside a nest—or inside the tree where the longhorn beetle gnaws its way forward ring by ring. The vibrant, rhythm-driven improvisations of three young percussionists—Dávid Burcsik, Dániel Láposi, and Benjámin Mohácsi—are organically woven into the musical universe. 

The piece was conceived and composed by János Bali, who has been working with spatially moving insect sounds for nearly a decade. For this work, the flight sounds of three insects—the horsefly, the hornet, and the longhorn beetle—proved the most intriguing. Hence the title. 

Olga Kocsi’s visual work creates an image world tailored to the possibilities of the dome and to the sensitivities of the audience, following a neuro-safe dome approach. The visuals are primarily composed of gently moving, slowly transforming animations, analog collages, and hand-drawn elements, all closely aligned with the structure of the sound material and the narration, breathing together with them. 

The aim of the visual concept is to create a safe, accessible, and inclusive experience that remains approachable even for audiences with sensitive nervous systems, while preserving the poetic, surreal, and reflective character of the work. 

The texts and the small, open-ended stories are shaped by poet Mátyás Sirokai, who—after previously guiding us into the worlds of trees and rocks in his volumes—now evokes the realm of insects through the magic of poetry. The episodes emerge from the free creative ideas of all contributors, fitting together just as they do in nature: logically, yet surprisingly. 

Why now, why for us? Because insects are disappearing, and we sometimes forget that we share this world with them. This piece does not preach—it is magical, humorous, and mysterious. Yet it quietly asks: who watches the watcher? Who puppeteers the puppeteer? And if buzzing, gnawing, and whispering are already music, then perhaps our speech is just another insect sound in the great symphony. 

25 minutes. Different every night. For children and adults.