World Premiere on July 19th, 2018 at Festival d'Avignon
Emanuel Gat Dance & Ensemble Modern

“For his first participation at the Avignon Festival, this Israeli choreographer based in France did not choose the easy way. But by asserting the strive towards a dance in which performers are at the centre - and sometimes co-authors - Emanuel Gat stands out in the big leagues. And at the Cour d’Honneur.”

Philippe Noisette, Les Echos

Story Water is an intermediary.

It is warm water, it is bread. It is a garden. It is the story of dancing bodies, of music being played, of color and line, and of the light that hides and shows it all.

It is an intermediary put to work in the service of communities, through reflecting the issues and concerns of the places where they land. It stands witness to meaning beyond the known, and is therefore a transcendent commerce, a currency, an economy of experiences. It is a place of fluid metaphors waiting for new contexts to emerge, so as to reveal new meanings.

The program brings together two unique artistic troupes, the Ensemble Modern from Frankfurt and Emanuel Gat Dance. Both shares a distinct vision regarding contemporary artistic creation. It is the fruit of a dialog between artists, makers and performers who despite working in different languages and domains, share an artistic philosophy regarding the development of inclusive, more horizontal creative environments.

Story Water is built around the notion of treating music and choreography as two distinctly separate entities, engaging in a real time, onstage dialog, rather than a mutual illustration.

“Nailed to their chairs, seized by the purity and modesty of Gat’s dance, the spectators have only one desire: to rush on the stage. We come out smiling, remembering why we so often go to the theatre: to experience those rare and short moments when a joyful meeting takes place as we are united by Art. Gat inscribed his name on the pediment of the greatest choreographers who have played in the Cour d’Honneur.”

Thomas Cepitelli, Theatrorama

The Scores

Dérive 2 by Pierre Boulez

A work for 11 musicians

Based on a single chord (derived from a musical transliteration of the initials of Paul Sacher's name), Derive 2 is an endless revision in constant expansion, functioning within a completely hermetic musical world.
Everything changes on the surface, but nothing underneath, thus addressing the notions of change and difference as a kind of musical kaleidoscope: continually shape-shifting forms are propelled by an incessant energy in order to retain their form, through a centripetal focus on the single guiding harmony, which can only be escaped when the music stops.

Fury II by Rebecca Saunders

Concerto for double bass and ensemble

Fury, as in a state of wild passionate anger, rage, a fit. Storm-like, Fury II tackles the choleric through an explosive sonic/acoustic landscape. It is built as a single breath, creating one arc beginning to end, and depicts a single state, or condition. Yet it is not concerned with defining an emotional landscape, but rather with exploring the energetic potential of sound, and how the performers engage physically while producing it. The central instrument is the five strings double-bass, with its low pulsing sounds, its extensive percussive possibilities and the pronounced physicality of the soloist, transporting the music with an obvious intensity of posture and gesture.
Fury II is a carefully organized composition of strong exploding sounds being pulled out of a canvas of silence, or rather the continuing presence of the potential of silence. It is a music which opens spaces, the intermediary spaces which are so needed.

FolkDance by Emanuel Gat & Ensemble Modern

A work for an ensemble of 11 musicians

FolkDance is a new musical creation by Emanuel Gat, devised together with the Musicians of Ensemble Modern Frankfurt especially for this program. This new score has come to life through the joyful juxtaposition of different folk musical traditions, processed through choreographic tools and procedures.
It is an experiment in the transposition of choreographic thinking into the field of live music, or rather, an invitation to the musicians of the Ensemble Modern to step into a choreographic space and mindset, where they are an integral part of the composition process, fully participating in the elaboration of the score they’ll be performing.

The main choreographic drive behind this new piece is the belief that choreographies are about interactions rather than movements, people rather than compositions, concrete situations rather than ideas and concepts. It examines emerging systems and the way in which they come into being through various processes and interactions between individuals.

The question of how we perceive and process the coexistence of what we SEE and what we HEAR, is at the heart of this program. It is a fundamental question, yet not one to necessarily be answered, but rather a phenomenon to observe and study.

This is the water our stories are made of: STORY WATER is a long deep look into the space in which music and choreography meet, serving as intermediaries and creating a space for people to step into.

A freshly watered garden.

Credits

Story Water - a work by Emanuel Gat - by Ensemble Modern for 12 dancers and 13 musicians.

Music: Pierre Boulez: « Dérive 2 » for 11 instruments (1988-2006/09)
Rebecca Saunders: « Fury II » concerto for solo double bass and ensemble (2009)
Emanuel Gat/Ensemble Modern: « FolkDance » (2018)

Emanuel Gat Dance
Ensemble Modern

Choreography stage and lights: Emanuel Gat
Conductor: Franck Ollu
Costumes: Thomas Bradley
Light direction: Guillaume Février
Sound director: Norbert Ommer
Live electronics: Felix Dreher

Dancers: Thomas Bradley, Robert Bridger, Péter Juhász, Zoé Lecorgne, Michael Löhr, Emma Mouton, Eddie Oroyan, Genevieve Osborne, Karolina Szymura, Milena Twiehaus, Sara Wilhelmsson, Ting-An Ying.

Musicians: Saar Berger (french horn), Jaan Bossier (clarinet), Paul Cannon (double bass, soloist Fury II), Eva Debonne (harp), David Haller (percussion), Christian Hommel (oboe), Stefan Hussong (accordion), Megumi Kasakawa (viola), Michael M. Kasper (cello), Giorgos Panagiotidis (violin), Rainer Römer (percussion), Johannes Schwarz (bassoon), Ueli Wiget (piano).

A production by Emanuel Gat Dance, Ensemble Modern and Frankfurt LAB e.V.
Funded by Kulturfonds Frankfurt RheinMain, the City of Frankfurt and Ensemble Modern Board of Patrons e.V., with the help of Transfabrik Fund – Franco-German Fund for Performing Arts.
Emanuel Gat Dance is coproduced by Chaillot – Théâtre National pour la Danse, Festival d'Avignon, deSingel international arts campus, Pôle Arts de la Scène – Friche la Belle de Mai. Funded by BNP Paribas Foundation.
Residency at the FabricA of the Festival d'Avignon. Partnership: Kryolan - Professional Make-Up.
Ensemble Modern is coproduced by Beethovenfest Bonn, Künstlerhaus Mousonturm.