The first part of the evening will be a fragment of the new work called So Blue by Louise Lecavalier, which is a co-production with the Montréal-based choreographer Benoît Lachambre.

Afterwards Louise Lecavalier revives the great times of La La La Human Steps in her two duets of A Few Minutes of Lock. She evokes what took place on stage in the 80s and 90s and what has long been immersed in a mythic sheen. Thus, the play refers to the presence, performed in the theatrical manner of Edouard Lock and intensified by the artist’s own stage presence.

Louise Lecavalier

Benoît Lachambre

Edouard Lock

Drumming, a composition by Steve Reich, is based on approximately an hour of continuous music and rhythms. Twelve musicians of Ictus Ensemble and thirteen dancers of Compagnie Rosas perform in front of the baroque cathedral of Salzburg. Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker presents her complex and equally cunningly simple choreography which is based on a single choreographic phrase and characterized by infinite combinations, variations and transformations.

Rosas

Ictus Ensemble

Bob Dylan’s first visit in Salzburg was during the sommerszene 1996. The festival was called Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door, which was the last part of a festival trilogy after Dantes Divina Commedia. Since then the organizer lba-music/NYX Attractions is taking care of the grandmaster. When this partner of the szene announced the date for the concert in Salzburg, which is in the middle of the sommerszene, it was certain that the festival has to pause and send the audience off to Bob Dylan.

Bob Dylan

Bereft of a Blissful Union (1996)

Wim Vandekeybus presents a short film which is part of the story Petkutin and Kalina by Milorad Pavić. Moreover this tale was also source of inspiration for his surreal movie. He creates images that seem confusing and surprising to the audience  at the same time. Furthermore they open your imagination and let you dream of wide and alien places in the distance, full of absurdities.

„With Bereft of a Blissful Union (he) pulls his powerful images from the absurd, the surreal and the unconscious. It surprises and confuses at the same time, but also opens a wide fan of possibilities, associations and interpretations with which the spectator is confronted and from which he can choose according to his taste.“ Paul Verduyckt, Knack, 1996

 

Inasmuch … (2000)

„The silent film is about life and death, about conflicts between, and continuity through generations. But above all it is an audiovisual feast, a sparkling ride, in which the camera direction, the editing (amongst others a number of impressive slow motions), sound and music create a very characteristic world. A movie as a dream, a high, a trance.“ Gorik De Henau, Video, 2001

Wim Vandekeybus

Do Meg Stuart and Philipp Gehmacher make an attempt of embracing each other? Or do they want to bring about each other’s downfall when they show fighting and hugging? In the fault lines there is a thin border between affection and repulsion. In the background of the stage Vladimir Miller is acting with his video camera as third person. He decodes the perfomance on stage through his perspective into a second projected image plane: he turns the audience’s attention around and transforms the performing people on stage into actors in his own video installation.

Meg Stuart

Philipp Gehmacher

Here After (2007) is the cinematographically adapted version of the dance and acting performance Puur, which was performed in 2005 at the sommerzsene for the first time within Europe. The experimental fim is composed of a combination of dance and fiction with a strong narrative character. The story is told by flashbacks and cutbacks where the bodies and movements of the dancers convey their emotions.

„The film shows terror and its destroying effect on a community and questions existential themes such as life/death, culpability/penance, identity/memory, regret/negation and power/freedom.“ Wim Vandekeybus

Wim Vandekeybus

In Spite of Wishing an Wanting (2002) is a co-production with the composer and co- founder of Talking Heads David Byrne. This film is a composition of movements, music, language and silence. The male dancers totally burn out themselves until they reach complete exhaustion.

„In Spite of Wishing and Wanting is about how it is impossible to explain your deepest wish or desire …But in your dreams and sleep, your deepest wishes and fears can be expressed.“ Wim Vandekeybus

Wim Vandekeybus

In the Dietrichsruh is growing an accessible, contemporary garden, partly organic, partly artificial, which is designed by Michel Blazy. The garden is used as a metaphor, a motivation, a source of inspiration and a place to act. The performance of Chris Haring/Liquid Loft takes place throughout the whole garden – deformation and devastation is left behind. Sound and performance are linked: the acoustic environment reveals the movements and words of the dancers.

Due to the combination of the thriving garden and the compositional figures The Perfect Garden will be an unforgettable artistic adventure.

This performance can be seen as a gift to the Paris-Lodron-University on the occasion of its 50th anniversary.

Chris Haring/Liquid Loft

Michel Blazy

This film production is based on the successful performance of the same title but is located in the beautiful landscape of Corsica and in the ghettos of Brussels. The music is composed by David Eugene Edwards and Woven Hand, the text is written by the Flemish author Peter Verhelst. Blush (2005) is about the search for the subconscious wild, the mystic forest and the own imagination.

„Blush is a clear story that keeps the necessary suggestivity to make the dark forces of passion tangible.“ Geert Sels, De Standaard, 2005

Wim Vandekeybus

The Canadian choreographer Dave St-Pierre describes an emotional performance of opposites composed of a harshly reduced stage setting, a few stage props, but numerous dancers. He shows the last part of his wildly successful trilogy about the human utopia. His dance and acting perfomance deals with our society, its superficiality, its deficits and eventually with the human being itself. By the bareness of his dancers he provokes and convinces the audience of the extreme tensions of the body, sensing the basic instinct.

[youtube CApElRFSiUA&feature=related]