Performance

Two men sit on chairs, set their sheet music in front of them and begin to dance with their hands and arms. In a game of changing rhythms and controlled continuity, they deepen into an engaging, exciting dialogue between gesture, music and dance.

The performance »Both sitting duet« by the British choreographer Jonathan Burrows and the Italian composer Matteo Fargion was inspired by a composition by the American Morton Feldman (1926-87). Burrows and Fargion have performed the piece in 21 countries and won the New York Dance and Performance Award »Bessie« in 2004.

Jonathan Burrows, born in 1960 in Durham, was a soloist of the Royal Ballet in London. He founded his own company in 1988 and also worked as a choreographer with the William Forsythe Ballet in Frankfurt/Main. Burrows gives workshops at P.A.R.T.S. in Brussels and teaches at the theatre institute of the University of London. Matteo Fargion, born in 1961 in Milan, studied composition at the University of Natal in South Africa and in London. He teaches composition at P.A.R.T.S. and writes music for numerous theatrical productions. Burrows and Fargion have been working together for 15 years.

»Both sitting duet« is part of a trilogy which includes »The quiet dance« (2005) and »Speaking dance« (2006), which are being planned as guest performances for euro-scene Leipzig 2008.

»A dense composition made from the movements of the fingers, hands and arms, whose elements, due to their strict reduction, contain a seemingly infinite variety of possibilities of combinations and expressions. ›Both sitting duet‹ is a challenge to dance, which is constantly realised here in its purest form« (Gerald Siegmund, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 05.11.2002).