The Madness of
Lenient Continuity
Premiere: 06.12.2007
Theaterhaus Gessnerallee, Zurich (CH)
one room
one night
two man
The rhythm of his music is made of
the continuity of presence,
or the continuity of oblivion.
The rhythm of his dance is made of
the continuity of presence,
or the continuity of oblivion.
Yet they were not the same.
One single space, one single moment, one start, two extremes: Nik Baertsch's repetitive rapid piano refrain plays in direct contrast to Hideto Heshiki movements which seem to emerge from a deep internal calmness. It seems almost as if the two want to play out a challenging duel between presence and absence, between rest and action. With a trick of the light and exactly according to Japanese tradition, it seems as if endless spirits and ghosts appear. They float across the floor, dissolve into thin air, vanish into the dark shimmering of the music and leave both artists in the madness of perpetual creation and destruction of their own art.
Not as a further opponent, but more as a judge in the ring, the dancer Nurya Egger acts as a main focus between the adversaries and as the evening progresses, through her the duo of extremes diffuses into a continual forward motion.
This new piece from Hideto Heshiki, "Stereo", pursues his unceasing research into the interaction between dance and live music and is a tension-charged, heavily atmospheric complete work of art. It is not just Baertsch's music, but also Heshiki's dancing and Egger's flowing dance-like contribution which lay the foundations of the experience of everyday city life, in which the necessary search for a connection to another individual only serves to increase the feelings of loneliness, and sets a juxtaposition of both distance and expectancy, against the most power experience of closeness.
Choreography/Dance Hideto Heshiki Music Nik Baertsch Dance Nurya Egger Theatre/Lighting Niki Good, Frank Dardel Costumes Andrea Freund Production Management Niki Good, Sarah Maier In Co-Production with the Theaterhaus Gessnerallee and with the friendly support of: Stadt Zürich Kultur, Fachstelle Kultur Kanton Zürich, Pro Helvetia Schweizer Kulturstiftung, Migros Kulturprozent, Stanley Thomas Johnson Stiftung, Kulturstiftung Winterthur, Sophie und Karl Binding Stiftung, Stiftung der Schweizerischen Landesausstellung 1939, Corymbo Stiftung, National Theater of Okinawa