17.02.2018
Bode-Museum
An event organised by the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin in collaboration with the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. Performance: Saturday 24 February 2018, 8 pm.
Using gravity to overcome gravity – the eternal dream of flying. Dance and music come very close to fulfilling this dream: two virtuoso hip-hop dancers, international masters of their art, challenge gravity, while the girls’ choir of the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin sing Giovanni Battista Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater as they move in abstract formations. Tableaus form and disperse, opposing forces create friction fields which hold the room in suspense.
The Stabat Mater is a spiritual work set to liturgical texts, the lament of the Virgin Mary for her lost son, Jesus. Unlike opera, it is a musical form with no story line. In this performance the choreographed sequences unfold without any descriptive narrative. Instead, GRAVITATION resembles an abstract ritual, which allows the music to emerge from the movement. The choral soundscapes structure the music; the soundscapes set in motion structure the shared space.
The movements and interactions of the choir and the two dancers hint at stories and human connections, but there is no attempt to portray them. GRAVITATION thus comes close to a very primitive form of dance: dance as a shared ritual in which music, singing and movement merge to create a spiritual experience.
The setting of the performance also influences its content: GRAVITATION unfolds its suggestive power, not on an opera stage or in a church, but in the church-like space of the Basilica of the Bode-Museum – creating an exhibition of dancing sculptures, holding the room in a state of abstract suspense.
With | The Girls’ Choir of the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin, Bboy Wilfried and Bboy Marcio (dance), capella vitalis berlin (music), Louise Wagner (choreography), Friederike Stahmer (musical direction), Klaus Janek (opening sequence), Marianne Akay-Arslantepe (costumes)
Duration | 50 minutes
Entry | €20, concessions €14
Tickets in advance | online booking now open