Co-production "Wagner & Ligeti" by Albert Quesada

This is a piece about the understanding of orchestral music, its repetitions, structures and the play with time.

"Wagner & Ligeti" is an exploration and embodiment of the chimerical processes by which the neutral phenomena ‘sound’ and ‘movement’ become impregnated with meaning, transforming into ‘music’ and ‘dance’.

For "Wagner & Ligeti", Albert Quesada uses Wagner's overture to Tannhauser, one of the clearest pieces of ‘narrative’ instrumental music in the western canon, and in contrast with this György Ligeti’s 1967 piece Lontano, with which Ligeti sought to undo notions of musical hierarchy, presenting a 12-tone orchestral arrangement. The audience is presented and confronted with these two seemingly radically different pieces of music, but when looked at closely resemble and long for each other. A group of dancers guides them through this experience, and rhythmically conduct the sound with their actions. The rhythm of their abstract movement in synchrony or asynchrony with the music creates the narrative.

Concept: Albert Quesada
Developed from and with: Marcus Baldemar, Eleanor Campbell, Federica Porello, Mireia de Querol, Albert Quesada, Zoltán Vakulya
Performance: Marcus Baldemar, Federica Porello, Mireira de Querol, Albert Quesada, Zoltán Vakulya
Sound design: Christian Francois
Light design: Bert Van Dijck
Costumes: Sofie Durnez
Choreographic assistance: Petra Söör