Have you ever heard a piano that had been manipulated by spikes? In Sonatas and interludes a powerful piece, performed by Lenio Kaklea you will experience this unnatural sound. Kaklea is a choreographer from Greece who began to create contemporary dance performances after her studies. She uses her body in a way only a few people dare to try. Together with the pianist, who plays the music that was written by John Cage, she creates a very spectacular piece.
The performance itself was very experimental with a theme that can be interpreted in different ways. For example, some saw it as growing up from a child to a woman and others saw this performance as letting go of expectations and prejudices. The particular reason for the circumstance of these differences of interpretation is also a difference of opinion about the play.
Some people were glaringly enthusiastic about the piece, about just getting across what was happening, and others were a little less enthusiastic. These felt more that it was a strange, repetitive piece. Of course, this style of dance has both supporters and detractors. But everyone is allowed to have their own opinion about the piece, which makes the discussion about it all the more interesting.
A creation under the spotlights
The dancer herself wanted to convey in this piece the way of moving and dancing from the time of John Cage, around the 1940s’. As she would put it herself: “It does not coat any dance from the 40s’, but it invites a vocabulary of that era.”
In addition to the choreography, there were several pluses to the performance. For example, the play of light was a great asset to the piece. Through the use of spotlights in different places and different types of light that the technicians played with brought more life into the austere performance.
A piano with spikes
The performance we saw was accompanied by the music of John Cage, a composer who died in 1992, but who has left a great impression on the music industry. The music that was played by the pianist put you in a certain mood. The music they used was a performance in itself due to the special use of screws placed on the strings of the piano. This gave very strange sounds, but that didn’t make them any less beautiful. You could hear that the piece was written to be played this way.
What was also striking was that the dancer sensed the music perfectly, so at certain moments she could do her movements exactly on the beat and at others she would counteract it completely. Because she had such a feel for the music, she could also start playing with it and this made it interesting for both the artist and the audience.
Lise Demuynck en Marie-Lune Sablain, TeeNEXTers 2021
Photo : NEXT Festival
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