#tdw14

Congratulations to the whole Theater der Welt team on a job well done. It was an incredibly rich, enriching, challenging, and inspiring program of dance, theater, performance art, and music, expertly implemented.

I was so thrilled to be a part of it and to have seen so many amazing performances over the last few weeks.

Unfortunately just these rather scanty images of Partita 2 last night, the performance by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Boris Charmatz, and Amandine Beyer since the NTM staff (who also, annoyingly, talked through the first 20 minutes of the violinist solo) refused to allow me to take more.  As it turns out, it would have been a difficult performance to capture in images anyway. The first third of the piece was conducted in complete darkness; just the violin playing, obviously so the audience could focus on the pure sound, and the music. This was a bold move and I am sure the music lovers in the audience had often thought to themselves that the music of a great soloist is best heard without the distraction of sight. Being in a large room, however, with a large crowd of people, in complete darkness creates rather a strange dynamic. Everyone felt it as the lights were extinguished, a certain tension. It wasn't long before the first rustlings began and several people even left the auditorium (causing much kerfuffling and the switching on and off of flashlights by the staff) - perhaps they were afraid, who knows. Whatever the reason, those people missed what was perhaps the most beautiful moment of the whole evening, as the last note was played and the violinist walked from the stage, part of her departing body briefly illuminated by the throwing open of a giant door to the left of the stage.

The second third of the performance was the exact opposite of the first; just the movement and no sound. Clearly masterful and yet somehow feeling unfinished or not fully executed, the dancers appeared at times to be carrying out perfectly choreographed steps, and at times reacting to each other and improvising, struggling to remain in synch.

The third portion, obviously, brought the two together, although it was hard to say whether the whole was considerably more than the sum of its parts. Certainly, however, it was an interesting concept, and one that definitely deserves to be further explored by three masterful practitioners.

Gretta Louw mag Bilder, die sich bewegen. Vor allem flatterhafte und überraschende Animationen im GIF-Format haben es der Performance- und Medien-Künstlerin angetan. Auch für ihr neuestes Projekt fertigt sie - neben kleinen Videos und kurzen Texten…