The Auditori de Barcelona's “Escenas” cycle offers artistically hybrid experiences which connect music with other performing-arts disciplines. And this show is another example, combining contemporary music focused on percussion and choreography, featuring the participation of some big names. The first is Michael Gordon, an American composer of contemporary music, who with David Lang and others, founded Bang on a Can, the New York platform and festival dedicated to this scene. Commissioned by the Dutch dance group Club Guy and Roni, he composed Timber, the piece for six percussionists that we can hear in this show, evoking a journey through the desert (hence the name). It will be played by Frames Percussion, a Barcelona percussion group dedicated to the sounds of our time, who in recent years have achieved wide-ranging international recognition. Six performers from the group will be playing wooden simantras, which form the basis of this composition. These instruments are used in Orthodox liturgies and consist of a type of wooden slats that are sometimes suspended and sometimes mounted on a base. Related to the marimba or the xylophone, the simantra has much richer tones and harmonics than those instruments, and a simpler, more primal character. The performance of Frames Percussion places the spectator at the centre of the sound, creating an immersive experience which invites the audience to journey through their own interior desert.
As part of the experience, the music of Timber will be accompanied by three dancers performing a choreography created by one of their number, Albert Quesada. This artist lives between Barcelona and Brussels, where he founded the Moderne Theaterdans (MTD) in Amsterdam and the well-known Performing Arts Research and Training Studios (P.A.R.T.S.) in Brussels; he has also studied Philosophy and Multimedia Engineering. He has worked with big names in dance, including the ZOO company / Thomas Hauret, but he has also created his own personal project with the ACME company, where he explores, investigates, translates and alters musical and choreographic structures. This dancer and choreographer, who believes that chaos must be inherent in art, has created pieces that are based on the performance of Glenn Gould in Variacions Goldberg, various choreographies that lead to other dance styles, flamenco structures or performances created to bring classical works to the audience, such as Vivaldi's Four Seasons, via contemporary dance choreography performed by an amateur group. Together with Katie Vickers, one of the dancers who perform this choreography, he co-directs dance and theatre teaching programmes in the USA.
A L'Auditori production.
With the support of Barcelona City Council, SACD.
With the collaboration of Graner, Centre de creació, L’Animal a l’esquena, el Konvent and La Visiva.
Music composed by: Michael Gordon (Timber; 2009) Music performed by: Frames Percussion (Sabela Castro Rodríguez, Javier Delgado Pérez, Rubén M. Orio, Daniel Munarriz Senosiain, Sergio Sande, Miquel Vich Vila) Choreography and direction: Albert Quesada Choreographic performance: Albert Quesada, Georgia Vardarou, Katie Vickers Sound design: to be determined Lighting and stage design: to be determined Costume design: Jorge Dutor
