Silent Con­front­ation

Silent Con­front­ation

Silent Confrontation plays with ideas, imagery and music of the Renaissance. More precisely: laborgras finds innovative ways of bringing the Renaissance to the stage, confronting the past with the present.

The dancers begin poised like a tableau in the middle of the stage, which was built in perspective, before unfolding into an inverted origami of various solos where different constellations and confrontations organically pursue their own paths. Some configurations solidify only to dissipate seconds later in an eternal ebb and flow.

Like the dance, the stage is wide open, free to transform and adapt. Light changes from warm tones to a uniform, almost clinical white flood, orienting itself by the tone of dynamically crossfaded renaissance images in the background. The music is not underpainted: the renaissance and baroque songs drive the dance, commenting it and interacting with the dancers.

A true exchange is underway: the communication between dancer and music is not orchestrated, rather follows an open, spontaneous path that can turn at any moment. Thus we reach a contemporized notion of the Renaissance, not by repeating the past but by reinterpreting it in terms of the present day: the interplay between dance, stage design, music and costumes renders the past physical, an experience for the senses.

Concept/Artistic Direction: laborgras
Musical Direction / Composition: Phoebe Killdeer & Ole Wulfers
Choreography and Dance Renate Graziadei in collaboration with the dancers: MariaGiulia Serantoni, Rosalind Masson, Lena Meierkord, Cesare Benedetti 2016, Sergey Zhukov 2018
Live-Musicians: Julien Decoret, Fabricio Tentoni, Ole Wulfers, Phoebe Killdeer
Sound Design: Andrea Parolin
Dramaturgy: Arthur Stäldi
Costume Design: Arianna Fantin
Assistance Costume: Sandra Tiersch
Consulting Make Up & Hair: Kati Heimann
Lighting Design: Lutz Deppe
Video: Karl Wedemeyer
Production: Inge Zysk, Raquel Moreira
Press and Publicity: k3 berlin

Pictures: Phil Dera
Recording of the performances in December 2018 at Radialsystem, Berlin.
Camera: Walter Bickmann, Kirsten Kofahl, Doris Kolde, Dominik Schötschel
Editing: Walter Bickmann

World premiere
December 29th 2016

Venue: radialsystem
Holzmarktstr. 33
10243 Berlin

A laborgras production supported by
the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Europe and the Haupstadtkulturfonds Berlin.
Made at Studio laborgras.

Reviews
Merker
Tanznetz
Morgen Post
Jörg Dauscher