Gamelan & Jazz
May 2010 – Den Haag
[unitegallery gamelan_jazz_v]
Information
| Concept, Choreography | : | Gerard Mosterd |
| Concept Assistant | : | Karolien de Pauw |
| Co-Choreography | : | Ricardo Ambrozio (Ultima vez) and Julia Mitomi |
| Live Music | : | Boi Akih |
| Live Video | : | Morgana Machado Marques |
| Technique | : | Roland van Meel |
| Photography | : | Karolien de Pauw, Chérie Goewie |
| Dancers | : | Joana Schwing, Ricardo Ambrozio, Blazej Jasinski |
| Duration | : | 40 Minutes |
| Date | : | 20th of May – 20:15 & 27th of May – 14:45 Tong Tong Fair, Bintang Theatre |
| Sponsor | : | Casema Cultuurfonds |
More About Boi Akih
About
In Gamelan & Jazz (preliminary title), the theatre maker Gerard Mosterd works with the contrast between Asiatic ritual, cyclical musical forms and the individualistic improvisation techniques of the phenomenon Jazz. During the Tong Tong Festival he will give two presentations of an interdisciplinary production in progress. The end result, a full evening’s collaboration with the intriguing music of Boi Akih, is expected in 2011 to go on an international tour. Without making any explicit use of traditional music and dance techniques but while suggesting them his productions in their own idiosyncratic way explore European-Asiatic subject matter and transform them into theatre.
Gerard Mosterd works regularly in Asia and in the Netherlands, where he makes cross-over, physical theatre productions which annually tour Dutch and Asiatic theatres. In 1999 he introduced for the first time modern dance theatre at the Tong Tong Fair (previously Pasar Malam Besar). Gamelan & Jazz is the ninth production which he will show at this well attended Euro-Asiatic festival.
Gallery
[unitegallery gamelan_jazz]
Press / Media Review
SENSORY STIMULATING GAMELAN AND JAZZ FROM GERARD MOSTERD
By Kirsten Vos
During the try-out of Gerard Mosterd’s new Gamelan and Jazz (working title) at the 52nd Tong Tong Fair, I saw people walking out of a full Bintang Theater. They probably had expected something in the way of ‘tempo doeloe’: a Gamelan, Balinese dancers and more of that type of dated sweetness. Fortunately people who expect this are absolutely not satisfied during this daring and sensory stimulating dance production.
The dancers, a woman and two men, wait on stage while the public wanders into the hall. While on the screen behind the dancers a kaleidoscope is shown, Boi Akih begins the live music. The silhouettes of the dancers are etched like wayang puppets onto the background. The dancers begin synchronously, but in proportion to the increasingly heavy drum and bass a schism occurs: the movements of one of the dancers becomes fluid, while the other two continue to dance strictly.
While the music and the visuals change, it appears as if the dancers undergo a re-birth. They fall to the ground, to the earth, and that goes hand in hand with unrest, resistance and chaos. Emotions find their way out via the shuddering bodies of the performers and the dissonances in the voice of the Moluccan Monica Akihary.
The music alters into a melodic fado. The female dancer awakes. Her hands make careful, elegant Indonesian movements. Supplely her solo turns into a trio while the music is made up of increasingly more instruments. It seems as if a ‘ meeting of species’ is taking place on stage. In the performance of the dancers a spark has arisen. Movement is everywhere, the singer ‘beat-boxed’, but the dancers distance themselves. The men springing with passion, tension and heat: they challenge one another, the acceleration of their movements reminds one of the Ketchak dance.
Then one dancer embraces the other. Suddenly there seems to be a moment of oneness, but the dancer who is held droops – disappointed, shocked? – off, while the other, alone, continues the embrace. Does he symbolize Jazz and the man who has sat down Gamelan, is the question I ask myself. And the female dancer, is she then life, movement, expression? This is how I decide to view the rest of the performance.
The visuals disappear, Jazz is furious because of the rejection. Then he undergoes a transformation. Oneness is not a question of holding and control, but of symbiosis. Gamelan and Life join him. What follows is chaos. On the screen can be seen how Life makes numerous facial expressions, the singer utters eery high sounds, Jazz and Gamelan try to go with each other.
Then I hear really good drum and bass and feel how Jazz, Gamelan and Life have found a new symbiosis. I feel moved by the uninhibitedness of the three dancers, who in almost acrobatic movements feel how they strengthen each other. With this new freedom the try-out ends and the performers bask in enthusiastic applause.
Finally free, is the feeling with which I leave the theatre. While, still somewhat moved, I walk through the Grand Pasar to the exit, I realize what a person of two cultures experiences in order to reach this state. And how marvelously Gerard Mosterd has translated into movement, music and isuals this inner transformation, the equally valued oneness of East and West.
The Indian performance choreographer Gerard Mosterd is known for his conceptual work, wherein the mixing of Western and Eastern worlds stands central. Previously he created a furore with Ketuk Tilu and Unfolding . In the meantime he is developing with the music group Boi Akih a production wherein Gamelan and Jazz meet each other. At the 52nd TTF they will present a test version.
SOURCE: Indisch 3.0 uitgesproken
