A Montage for the Anthropocene
A music theatre piece for singer, dancer, ensemble and electronics (2020) created by Pia Palme, Paola Bianchi, Juliet Fraser, Irene Lehmann, Christina Fischer-Lessiak − an artistic research collaboration group as part of the PEEK Project On the fragility of sounds
Duration 60’
Pia Palme – concept, composition, text, bass recorder
Juliet Fraser − voice (soprano), dance
Paola Bianchi − choreography, dance
Christina Fischer-Lessiak − artistic assistant, research, production
Irene Lehmann − dramaturgy
Lars Mlekusch – conductor
Ensemble PHACE
Doris Nicoletti – flutes | Reinhold Brunner – bass clarinets | Daniele Brekyte – violin | Rafał Zalech – viola | Barbara Riccabona – violoncello | Alexandra Dienz – double bass | Berndt Thurner – percussion
Molly McDolan − oboe da caccia
Sonja Leipold – harpsichord
Veronika Mayerböck – light
Christian Sundl – event assistant
For the video & trailer
Michaela Schwentner – film direction and concept, editing
Christina Bauer – sound design, recording
Martin Siewert – sound editing
Martin Putz – camera
Produktion FWF PEEK Projekt On the fragility of Sounds AR 537
mit Unterstützung der KUG Kunstuniversität Graz, ZfG
Koproduktion mit Wien Modern 33.
@WUK Vienna, Projektraum
Download the evening programme here:
A montage for the Anthropocene?
The piece began as a research experiment. It is an experimental opera or a music theatre work in the widest sense.
Pia Palme: ‘I began with some devised material which I knew would form only a starting point; the process is like walking into a room with a blindfold on.’
Paola Bianchi uses her archive of postures to work from:
‘I have been using my archive of postures (or non-postures, collective images), which I am interested to share with others to see how they are transformed. These are my tools. It is like seeing how different ingredients fit together or can be destroyed.’
The premiere and the performances were not open to the public. We arranged the venue Projektraum at WUK into a ‘COVID-safe’ theatre space and rehearsed the piece according to the pandemic regulations at the time. Performances were then recorded and filmed. We changed the stage concept so that the required safety distance could be kept between the members of the ensemble as well as between the performers. The trailer therefore shows an adapted arrangement and choreography, not the original design. I completed the composition during the first lockdown period in Austria in the spring of 2020 and made adjustments that became necessary because of the pandemic later that year, during a residency in Switzerland. The artistic process of all the contributors resonates the difficult situation during that year. Michaela Schwentner produced a film of the premiere which was shown online in January 2021.
Venue: WUK Projektraum 1090 Wien
Time of recordings: 13. – 15. 11. 2020, without audience
Photos by David Visnjic
About the piece
Combining the distinctive creative process of choreographer Paola Bianchi with the compositional practice of Pia Palme, the piece has been devised in an experimental, non-hierarchical, collaborative way. The question of transmission between the disciplines was woven into the entire process of the group. We developed both precisely composed materials and improvisational modules. A storyboard designed by Palme and Bianchi brought these modules together and specified the spatial configurations. The storyboard was completed with Lehmann’s advice on dramaturgy and with feedback from Fischer-Lessiak. Every member of the creative group shared their particular expertise and experience. Soprano Juliet Fraser brought in her expertise as a singer. In her performance, she linked together Palme’s score with Bianchi’s oral instructions, giving feedback at every step during the process. She embodied Palme’s music and Bianchi’s choreography. The theatre scholar Dr. Irene Lehman and Christina Fischer-Lessiak, a musicologist and cultural worker, joined the group to further enrich the collaborative practice and discourse. The results explored the consonance, dissonance and interferences between voices, sounds, spaces and bodies – a polyphonic assemblage in which movement in space shapes music and sound shapes bodies in space. Also, multiple temporalities converge in the piece: Francesca Caccini’s soundworld and texts interfere with contemporary music and text, the intense period of the pandemic merges with pre-pandemic ideas and concepts.
(German)
Der transdisziplinäre Zusammenschluss bestehend aus der Komponistin Pia Palme, der Tänzerin/Choreografin Paola Bianchi, der Sängerin Juliet Fraser, der Theaterwissenschaftlerin Irene Lehmann und der Musikologin Christina Fischer-Lessiak arbeitet seit 2019 künstlerisch-forschend an Wechselwirkung und weiteren Projekten in Graz und Wien. Diese wachsende kollaborative Struktur rund um Pia Palme entwickelte sich aus vorangehenden Projekten mit Juliet Fraser (seit 2012, 2015 Mordacious Lips, to Dust) und Paola Bianchi (2013, ABSTRIAL). Die experimentelle Arbeitsweise der Gruppe lebt von der wechselseitigen Beeinflussung der individuellen Akteur*innen und vom Ineinandergreifen der unterschiedlichen Praktiken und Wissensvorräte.
“Körper bewegt, im Raum. Sie singt, keucht, atmet – stehend, drehend – sie kniet, liegt, rollt vor meinen Füßen, ihre hohe Stimme wandert mit, bis in meine Sohlen kann ich sie hören. Verliere mich in diesen angespannten Körpern, die quer über den Tanzboden kriechen. Zittern. In solcher Nähe zu diesen Menschen. Hör jetzt nicht auf zu singen! Sie erinnert sich: an die Einsamkeit. Sie möchte allein sein und doch nicht. Der Klang der Worte fasziniert sie, lesend hört sie nach innen: Lasciatemi morire, damals wie heute. Sie seufzt: Wie probt man, wie komponiert man, und, wie bitte, plant man erfolgreich eine Musiktheateraufführung während dieser Pandemie?
Sie denkt und schreibt:
Wie denn eine Brücke schlagen zu einem anderen Ufer,
das sich windet, verkrochen im Nebel nicht zu vermessen ist?”
