Tanz-Musik-Theater

A draining excitement pervades the performance. Sometimes the dance is dependant on the music, sometimes the opposite appears to be true. »fever« is an ongoing discourse, which makes dance audible and which makes poems dance. Language itself is made into music and dance.

Down to the absolute overspending, English dancer and choreographer Nigel Charnock recites and ironises some (of the total of 154) sonnets by William Shakespeare (1564-1616) to a complex tonal composition by clarinetist Michael Riessler. This is executed on the basic framework of established music, dance and text elements, but leaving room for exciting improvisation.

Nigel Charnock, born in Manchester in 1961, founded the famous DV8 physical theatre in 1986 with Lloyd Newson. Since 1996, he has been working with his own group as well as being a highly successful solo performer. His best known solos include »Human Being« (1997) and »Frank« (2002). In January 2003, he took over the artistic directorship of the Helsinki Dance Company, which opened the euro-scene Leipzig 2003 with his dance piece »The Intelligence of the Heart«.

Michael Riessler, born in Ulm in 1957 is one of the most creative and innovative musicians on the European music scene – equally at home with contemporary music as with jazz. He works as a clarinetist and composer, with numerous celebrities including e.g. Mauricio Kagel and Dieter Schnebel and with various symphony orchestras such as the WDR and the NDR. The Virus string quartet musicians play in first class orchestras in Köln, Darmstadt and Baden-Baden.

»This man comes across like a thunderstorm. A kind of Klaus Kinski of movement … No question about it: Nigel Charnock is a body artist of the first degree. The explosiveness entrances the audience in the form of controlled movement and the complex communication with the music. Here, he – like Shakespeare – always deals with the whole of life: love, sex, death … « (Bettina Schulte, Badische Zeitung, Freiburg, 19.11.2003).