Prélude Walk In – 150 Years of Claude Debussy
Tanz Atelier Wien in cooperation with ImPulsTanz Special
A spatial stage installation with Cecilia Li (piano solo), Sebastian Prantl (concept, dance) and protagonist Alexsandro Araujo Guerra (Tanz Atelier Wien, opera house Brasilia), as well as Ku Ming-Shen (Kuandu Arts Festival Taipei) with compositions by Claude Debussy and installations by Walter Kaitna
Music is the expression of the movement of the waters, the play of curves described by changing breezes” (Claude Debussy)
In the Trans Art Work series which are dedicated to interdisciplinary showings, Tanz Atelier Wien presents ‘Prélude Walk In’, a conscious combination of visual, acoustic and choreographic arts. The work of Claude Debussy will be the starting point for various spatial compositions.
After focusing on the oeuvre of author Friederike Mayröcker and kineticist Walter Kaitna, Tanz Atelier Wien devotes its upcoming production to the French composer, who would have celebrated his 150th birthday on August 22nd 2012.
Claude Debussy demanded of his music to stimulate the fantasy and create a world of inner pictures. Debussy’s piano music was not only able to evoke such poetic atmospheres in the audience, but he also drew his compositional intention from a similar source. The inspiring closeness of the arts such as painting, dance, poetry and music, built the climate in which a composer such as Debussy set up his artistic universe.
The unswerving search for the special relationship between dance, sound and visual space is in the foreground of the artistic approach of the solo-duo-trio formation of ‘Prélude Walk In’, in this way examining sound to image and image to sound transformations.
Selected compositions by Claude Debussy and musically related materials, played and interpreted by pianist Cecilia Li, serve as an impulse for the artistic work of the dancers. In homage to Debussy’s affinity to Asian traditions, Sebastian Prantl and Alexsandro Guerra combine this topic with contemporary counterpoints in their choreographic interpretation.
Since the Paris World Fair in 1889, the composer was impressed by the musical structure of Javanese Gamelan music, the traditional musical accompaniment of shadow theatre and dance. Inspired by Asian theatre traditions, Prantl and Guerra play with the transformation of characters and stage figures. Through changes of costumes, surrealisms, masks and the suspension of gender roles new relationships between changing characters are created constantly in different Solo-Duo variations.
Through the interweaving of music, dance and installations, in ‘Prélude Walk In’ the artists are bringing together different art forms, interacting with each thereby creating a multi-layered total work of art.
piano solo: Cecilia Li
spatial concept/dance: Sebastian Prantl
dancer: Alexsandro Araujo Guerra
installation: Walter Kaitna
sound: Michael Renner
lighting design: Boon Ann Goh
visual design: Jim Shum
coordination/public relations: Susanne Senekowitsch
[Tanz Atelier Wien, September 2012, Kuandu Arts Festival Taipei 2013]