Collaboration with the historical music ensemble Die Freitagsakademie
The production is an innovative and highly original response to François Couperin’s baroque masterpiece, “Concert dans le goût théâtral” (1724). Fourteen musicians and four dancers blur the boundaries between two highly specialized disciplines — contemporary choreography and baroque music. Traditional concert music serves as the basis for diverse theatrical experiments; a critical, irreverent but knowing engagement with the music leads to surprising new forms. The ensuing dialogue between music and dance is athletically inventive and baroquely complex, ironic and loving.
Our production is inspired by the Commedia dell’Arte. Although it is the key ancestor for many Western theatrical traditions, Commedia dell’Arte as such has practically disappeared from today’s stages and street fairs. We bring it back to life by recombining its DNA with that of contemporary dance. The highly physical forms of expression which transcend speech and intellect; the stereotypical characters who still manage to surprise us again and again; the virtuosic conjuring of new theatrical worlds with the merest of means — all of these classic features of Commedia are recombined and reinvented through a marriage with dance.
CHOREOGRAPHY
Joshua Monten
DANCE
Lazare Huet
Francesca Imoda
Jack Wignall
Ying Ting-An
Konstantinos Kranidiotis [alternate]
MUSIC
Die Freitagsakademie
LIGHTING DESIGN
Luz González
COSTUME AND STAGE DESIGN
Dorothee Scheiffarth
COMMEDIA DELL’ARTE CONSULTANT
Davide Giovanzana
PRODUCED BY
Tough Love
COPRODUCED BY
Teatro Dimitri
Dampfzentrale Bern
WE GRATEFULLY ACKNOWLEDGE FINANCIAL SUPPORT FROM THE FOLLOWING ORGANIZATIONS
Pro Helvetia
SWISSLOS / Kultur Kanton Bern
Kultur Stadt Bern
Stadt Solothurn
Burgergemeinde Bern
Migros Kulturprozent
Stanley Thomas Johnson Stiftung
Sophie und Karl Binding Stiftung
Stiftung Corymbo
Schweizerische Interpretenstiftung
Bürgi-Willert-Stiftung
PERFORMANCE HISTORY
11 June 2017 (try-out) — Teatro Dimitri, Verscio (CH)
19 June 2017 (2x) — Grosse Halle der Reitschule Bern (CH) (premiere)
20 June 2017 — Grosse Halle de Reitschule Bern (CH)
11 October 2017 — Stadttheater Biel (CH)
12 October 2017 — Stadttheater Solothurn (CH)
25 March 2019 — Tanztheatertage, Theater Hameln (D)