For The Record:
Memory refresher of a greedy art consumer
Sabine Jordan: Tanz in der Kreuzkirche
April 2010, Kreuzkirche Dresden
Sabine Jordan danced to contemporary (Jehan Alain and Jean Langlais) and baroc (J.S. Bach) organ music in the Kreuzkirche Dresden.
UT-OP.er: opera according to a book by Thomas Morus
October 2009, High-Voltage hall of the Technical University Dresden
In 1516 Thomas Morus wrote a novel "Utopia" which inspired Martina Veh (direction) and Alexander Strauch (music) half a millenium later to create an opera. The photo below shows insulators for high-voltage experiments at Dresden University where the opera was performed.
Hosoo & Ensemble Transmongolia
September 2009, Yenidze Dresden
Westmongolische Musik: Kehlkopfgesang (Höömii) mit Pferdekopfgeigen (Morin khuur) und Trommel. Der Höhepunkt: Hosoo (in der Mitte) singt dreistimmig!
Gypsy dance group ČERCHEŇA from Brno
July 2009, Rožnov pod Radhoštěm (Czech Republic)
ČERCHEŇA performed in The Little Wooden Town in Rožnov p.R. during a festival of Slovak folk dance Jánošĺkov Dukát. See more photos of ČERCHEŇA.
Johnny Gonzalez solo in M-Club
July 2009, Valasske Mezirici (Czech Republic)
Johnny played a mixture of his own compositions, jazz standards and Latin rhythms. His intense and energetic performance was received with excitement, though Johnny avoided easy music (with a single exception of a Bolivian dance) and borrowed frequently from free jazz, including clusters played with a flat palm, an ellbow and a fist.
Rabih Abou-Khalil and Ricardo Ribeiro: Em Portugues
July 2009, Castle Loket (Czech Republic)
Abou-Khalil wrote Arabic-style music to texts of five Portuguese poets. Fado sanger Ricardo Ribeiro interpreted them, accompanied by Abou-Khalil's oud. See report and further photos for details.
Open air concert of Sächsische Staatskapelle with Fabio Luisi
June 2009, Dresden, in front of Volkswagen’s Transparent Factory
Giuseppe Verdi, from I Vespri Siciliani: Overture, O tu, Palermo (Georg Zeppenfeld), In braccio alle dovizie (Roberto Servile)
Jules Massenet: Meditation from Thais for violine and orchestra
Charles Gounod: Ah! je ris de me voir si belle (Juwelenarie) from Faust (Chiara Taigi)
Jules Massenet: Vision fugitive from Hérodiade (Roberto Servile)
Camille Saint-Saëns: Bacchanale from Samson et Dalila
Giuseppe Verdi, from Simone Boccanegra: Il lacerato spirito (Georg Zeppenfeld), Suona ogni labbro il mio nome (Georg Zeppenfeld, Roberto Servile), Come in quest’ora bruna (Chiara Taigi), Figlia a tal nome il palpito (Roberto Servile, Chiara Taigi)
Hand in Hand: Beate Wein and Annett Lipske
June 2009, Dresden, Bunte Republik Neustadt
Pawel Althamer: Die Anderen
June 2009, Wien, Public Art Installation in the garden behind Secession exhibition center
Pedestrians strolling in the garden of the Secession building noticed that something unusual was going on, but few realized that they were entering an Art Installation. Pawel Althamer blocked the exhibition building, leaving only a narrow tunnel leading to the garden. He manipulated the place by numerous minor, careful intervensions: building a small vegetable garden in an edge between highly frequented roads, hanging a dummy satellite dish made of an umbrella in a tree, fixing fragments of Anton Blitzstein's psycho-sci-fi texts on tree trunks, hanging a boat torso made by Donat Grzechowiak between tree crowns. The shack on the left was built by students for a local homeless.
Fringe groups in Althamer's focus
But more importantly, and for sure much more tricky, was to populate the place. Because the purpose of his intervention was to initiate communication amoung social groups that are normally isolated, and which are not represented by random passengers, Pawel Althamer had to bring them in. We don't know how he achieved it: inviting the people, getting them excited for his project or paying them a honorary. But they were there, in all colors and tastes. A family of refugees with their childrens and baby carriages, handicapped people (a young lady in a wheel chair sang Beatles on the stage), smart and healthy looking young guys sitting in the grass with their notebooks (I guess students of the art school), the gay community. Ill and healthy, underdogs and winners side by side.
A mentally handicapped young man repeats a bowing ritual with grimasses, over and over, on a concrete area at the entrance. Nobody seems bothered or even interested. This coexistence is an achievement of its own, though Althamer's intention to enable communication across class borders - he even arranged for a camp fire to nourish such interactions - was not that successful.
Willingly or not, people entering the space by chance or out of curiosity become part of the event. Public participation means giving away the control and even the authorship, which has a great potential but also many pitfalls. Although the idea is not new, searching for new ways of exploiting it continues to be a challenge for performance art.
Mats Staub: Erinnerungsbüro
June 2009, Wien, Kunsthalle/Museumsquartier
triOzean
May 2009, Dreikönigskirche Dresden
triOzean is Olga Nowikow on piano, Krishan Zeigner on drums and Lars Födisch on bass. triOzean played after Matthias Rethberg Trio, which is a well-known name in Dresden's jazz scene while triOzean is a newcomer, in frame of "Jazz in the Church" series.
I reported about the performances of Krishan Zeiger, the drummer of triOzean, already three times: in Nicht fallen in 2007, Suenos del Sur in 2008, and Mementos Vividos in 2009, always with choreographies by Cynthia Gonzalez.
Maison Martin Margiela
May 2009, Munich, Haus der Kunst
Dance group of the University of Costa Rica
March 2009, San Jose, Costa Rica
"Schola" - Christmas concert in a wooden church in Beskydy mountains
January 2009, Velke Karlovice, Czech Republic
Head of the choir Pavla Mikeskova in the middle. See also photos of 2006 with two MP3 recordings.
Text and photos: Petr Karlovsky