EVER|RÊVE
In collaboration with Bára Gísladóttir
tanzhaus nrw
5 mai 2023
What certainties do we need to leave behind to dream versions of a new future? Can the communal experience of the suspended state brought on by a changed awareness create a new consciousness that enables a different form of encounter and community?
The questions for a (re)positioning of human in nature as but one of many creatures, for a new community and reciprocated care, pervade multiple award-winning Düsseldorf choreographer Ben J. Riepe’s most current productions and projects as a recurring theme. Riepe guested at tanzhaus NRW most recently with GESCHÖPFE, in 2020, an earlier stage of this artistic exploration. In congenial collaboration with the internationally in-demand Icelandic composer Bára Gísladóttir, with whom he cooperated not long ago at the Hanover Staatsoper, Ben J. Riepe again moves into musical theatre territory. In EVER|RÊVE, they, together with nine singers and performers, create an uncertain yet auspicious terrain set between daydream and nightmare, between creation myths and primal fears, in which our main sense, sight, seems to turn unreliable, with us becoming increasingly unable to trust our visual perception. In its stead, hearing comes to the fore, a shared auditive experience, from which a new sort of future community might emerge – on stage, as well as beyond.
In fog and light, with a proprietary composition of sound and vocalisations, in movement, words and text fragments from a variety of languages, Riepe, in his choreography, interweaves real, digital, and surreal moments into a dreamy inkling of a new world.
Julia Hübner (Production Dramaturgy) about EVER|RÊVE
An equilibrium, or an equivalence among creatures as animistic religions and cultures, for instance, experience and witness it in their everyday lives seems far removed from our visually culture predominantly operating in imagery. The essential difference in the perception of the environment can be found in indigenous sensory perception, much more attuned to listening, to sound, than to visual impulse.
Choreographer Ben J. Riepe and Icelandic composer Bára Gísladóttir, collaborating for the second time, explore a possible restructuring of the senses in their work EVER|RÊVE, and what would happen when the primacy of visual awareness would shift in favour of the auditive.
Simultaneous musical layers, coexisting in their concurrent states, form the core of this music for nine dancers, singers, and electronica by Icelandic composer Bára Gísladóttir.
The composer offsets towards the perspective from a linear to a vertical approach as regards musical time. The sounds constitute, instead of finalising a beginning or an end, a different perception of time, a continuous cyclical movement rather than a targeted conclusion.
Bára Gísladóttir transforms the tilting and turning points in Ben J. Riepe’s choreography into dense atmospheric soundscapes that are created around the polyphony, the performer’s vocal material.
Can a perceptual insecurity, the suspended state of a changed awareness, envision a new consciousness that enables a different form of encounter and community?
Choreography/Concept/Stage and Light Design: Ben J. Riepe
Performance: Luisa Fernanda Alfonso, Rupert Enticknap, Sandro Hähnel, Julian Mattlinger, Björk Níelsdóttir, Jolinus Pape, Paula Pau, Igor Sousa, Leonie Türke
Composition: Bára Gísladóttir
Choreographic Assistance: Darwin Díaz
Costume: Ben J. Riepe, Dominik Wieçek
Video: Hanna Noh, Jiha Jeon
Consulting Stage and Light Design: Matthias Singer, Philipp Zander
Dramaturgy: Julia Huebner
Musical Direction: Carolin Strecker
Voice Coaching: Carolina Rüegg
Project Management: Jessica Prestipino
Technical Direction: Philipp Zander
Coordination: Izaskun Abrego
Management/Communication: Nassrah-Alexia Denif
Social Media: Jolande Hörrmann, Jessica Prestipino
Visual Communication: dasbuero. Puder und Müller
Photos: Alexander Basile, Ursula Kaufmann
5 + 6 may 2023 tanzhaus nrw, Düsseldorf
13 may 2023 TanzFaktur, Cologne
During the festival tanz nrw 23.
Tickets here.
