Land Body Scape I
The title the Dreaming of Bones (W.B. Yeats) takes up a universal topic life and death and suggests a journey into the “hollows” of human fantasy.
The images on film evoke a multitude of content with regard to space and art. They also provide timing and structure for the protagonists.
Giacinto Scelsi’s orchestral world of sound (playback) gives the performance a spherical note, which is contrasted and further diversified in “Ttai Suite no. 9”. The sculptures by Karl Prantl suggest spatial anchors and signify symbols.
This suite should be listened to and played with greatest inner calm. Nervous people stay away.’ – these are the introductory words of the composer Giacinto Scelsi to his “Suite No. 9, Ttai”, used by Cecilia Li to roll out the musical carpet for dreaming of bones. In dreaming of bones the protagonists combine their experience of many years’ work with improvisation, space and their current study of an intermedia artistic matrix. The point of reference for dreaming of bones was William Butler Yeats’ play of the same name, which was inspired by the Japanese Nō-Theatre. Similar to Yeats’ text, the intermedia piece doesn’t narrate as much as create atmosphere and rely on the power of images to call up associations. The motivating force for the intermedia dancing performance was the question to what extent it would be possible to distil body-related information from a literary text. On this literary basis, the atmospheric soundscape of Scelsi meets the film opus of Duncan Ward and Gabriella Cardazzo: a journey through structures that tell of human life, but are more resilient and can therefore act as shaping memories. Beneath and with real objects, stones, bones, and wooden sculptures: Sebastian Prantl. The danced particles of movement are not in the foreground but, organically and in a flowing change, cede the focus to the film imagery or to the objects. By having an associative mind imbue them with spirit, this imagery can permeate flesh and blood.”
[Text: Ulli Moschen]
Sebastian Prantl draws figurative precious miniatures with his arms and contrasts them with the slapping impact of his body on the floor […]. The search has commenced.”
[Andrea Amort, Kurier, December 5th, 2003]
A journey through artificial and natural landscapes, to burial steles and ancient ornamentation, to the world’s history of art.”
[Ditta Rudle, www.tanz.at, December 2003]
In his moves, the dancer relates to his environment and the film: gestures are fitted to match geometrical forms, crosswise movements refer to the screen. Painstakingly, he probes the space, minutely palpating each corner. The sculptures by Karl Prantl and even the heads of some members of the audience are included in the world of dance by touch.”
[Oliver Lang, Kronen Zeitung, December 5th, 2003]