Parallallemande (working title) - Short versions of Both Sitting Duet & The Quiet Dance

The secret language of the body

Improvisation has always been a source of inspiration in Thomas Hauert’s choreographic work: the body has its own secret language and it surfaces through improvisation. Hauert and Chrysa Parkinson create a series of solos and duets set to the Allemande from Bach’s Partita II, BWV 1004. In between times Jonathan Burrows and Matteo Fargion will be performing short versions of Both Sitting Duet and The Quiet Dance.

Thomas Hauert on Parallallemande (working title): “The basis for the piece is a composition by J.S. Bach (Allemande from the Partita ll, BWV 1004) for a solo instrument. I’ve superposed two recordings; one version performed by a violin, the other by a trumpet. The two interpretations are quite different in colour, dynamics and tempo since the two musicians performed the piece as soloists and the two instruments offer certain specific qualities or impose specific limits. Hearing the two interpretations together is a very particular hearing experience. Besides the obvious counterpoint, harmonies and dissonances that occur, it is as if the movement of the music (the melodies, the dynamics) is spatially perceived inside our head. Our attention is being split in two sometimes to follow both instruments, or we are being tricked into hearing new melodies because our ears missed a turn and slid from one instrument to another without noticing.
    The dance is a bodily and spatial interpretation of the music. It is proposing a visualization of the phenomenon experienced while listening. The relationship between music and dance can also be seen as ‘interactive’ or reversible: the music proposing an ‘audiolization’ of the dance.”

In Both Sitting Duet and The Quiet Dance the English choreographer Jonathan Burrows and the Italian composer Matteo Fargion explore the permeable boundaries between dance and music and the various ways we perceive these two forms of expression.
   In Both Sitting Duet the dancer and the musician perform movements while seated on a chair, thus creating a common physical starting point. Together they execute fascinating hand and arm movements with great concentration and precision. The only music to be heard is the ‘natural’ sound that accompanies their movements. In 2003 Both Sitting Duet received a Dance and Performance Bessie Award in New York.
   In The Quiet Dance both men stand upright and from this position initiate movements with a sense of amazement akin to that of a child taking its first steps and making its first sounds. The result is a combined action that is both masterly and comic and pulsates with a delight in movement.
   We present the full version of these two parts in February 2007. In the same month, you can also see the premiere of the third and last part of the trilogy: Speaking Dance. In Speaking Dance, Burrows and Fargion transpose motionlessness into sound and/or language; it is as if the auditory aspect of communication (with each other and the audience) becomes increasingly important in the course of the three parts. How can abstract and formal means contain and/or amplify meaning? This is the question the dancer and the musician attempt to answer together even though each starts out from his own discipline.


PROGRAMME

Parallallemande (working title), part 1 - 5 min.
Both Sitting Duet - 20 min.
Parallallemande (working title), part 2 - 5 min.
The Quiet Dance - 15 min.
Parallallemande (working title), part 3 - 5 min.
Clapping Music - 5 min.


CREDITS

Parallallemande (working title)
concept and direction Thomas Hauert
with & by Chrysa Parkinson & Thomas Hauert
music J.S. Bach, Allemande from the Partita ll, BWV 1004; Thomas Hauert has combined recordings by Alison Balsom (trumpet) and Antal Szalai (violin) to make an original score
light designJan Van Gijsel
production ZOO
with support from the Flemish Minister for Culture, Youth, Sport and Brussels Affairs, Pro Helvetia Arts Council for Switzerland & the Vlaamse Gemeenschapscommissie

Both Sitting Duet & The Quiet Dance
with & by Jonathan Burrows & Metteo Fargion

Clapping Music (1972)
music composed by Steve Reich
performed by Jonathan Burrows & Matteo Fargion