CREDITS
choreography
Radhouane El Meddeb
music
Matteo Franceschini
inspired by Mozart's Requiem Mass in D Minor, K. 626
lighting design
Eric Wurtz
with the dancers of MICOMPAÑIA
Lisset Galego Castañeda, Diana Columbié Gamez, Marlien Daliana Ginarte Álvarez, Erismel Mejias García, Rubinel Ortiz Mayedo, Gabriela Herrera Méndez,
Niosbel Osmar González Rubio, Kenzo Carrion Rodríguez, Susana Pous Anadon
music performed by
Orchestra Haydn di Bolzano e Trento
under the direction of
Jean Deroyer
live electronics
Tovel
(aka Matteo Franceschini)
artistic collaboration
Noel Bonilla-Chongo &
Susana Pous Anadon
assistant to the choreographer
Philippe Lebhar
sound engineer
Roberto Mandia
premiere
21 July 2020,
festival Bolzano Danza / Tanz Bozen, Teatro Comunale di Bolzano (IT)
duration
approx. 60 minutes
language
no problem
availability
seasons 20/21, 21/22
touring party 15 pax
if without orchestra
transport tbc
links & downloads
> performance sheet (EN)
> dossier de diffusion (FR)
> context
> full video (password)
> HR photos (password)
> technical rider (password)
"Requiem (Siá Kará)" is a creation by French-Tunisian choreographer Radhouane El Meddeb and Italian composer Matteo Franceschini, where professional contemporary dancers from Cuba - MICOMPAÑIA, direction Susana Pous Anadon - and amateur performers from Bolzano will meet Franceschini's original composition, inspired by the intensity of Mozart's Requiem Mass in D minor, K 626. Franceschini's music will be performed live by the more than 40 musicians of the Orchestra Haydn under the musical direction of Jean Deroyer, and the composer himself, aka “Tovel”, on electro-acoustic devises.
The work, commissioned by Fondazione Haydn / Bolzano Danza, will premiere on July 21st, 2020, at the international dance festival Bolzano Danza / Tanz Bozen, in Italy. Both renowned artists create evocative, significant works and have, while applying a purely abstract language, a clear sensitivity for the narrative qualities of music and choreography. In this new work they bring together seemingly opposite, dialectical concepts, such as presence & absence, classical & contemporary, acoustics & electronics. "Requiem (Siá Kará)" is a dialogue between El Meddeb and Franceschini, between authors and performers, between musical instruments and electronic devices.
Radhouane El Meddeb & Matteo Franceschini: "Our Requiem is an instantaneous reflection on life and death, a polaroid of the collective, a flash mob materialised as if by magic in a public space. Citizens, a multitude of individuals, anonymous, people of all origins meeting and sharing their concerns, joys, pains, fears, hopes. A reflexion on the essence of humanity. An eternal collective rite, reflecting on immortality, on the irreversible. The necessity of a suspension, freezing the frame, and maybe find some lightness, a sense of liberty, where one can overcome fears and find inspiration in the enjoyment of life, as short as it may be, to help us understand the world of the living. "
production La compagnie de SOI coproduction Bolzano Danza / Tanzbozen (Bolzano, IT), Orchestra Haydn di Bolzano e Trento (Bolzano, IT), Mi Compañia (La Havane, CU), La Briqueterie, CDCN du Val-de-Marne - Biennale de la danse du Val-de-Marne (Vitry-sur-Seine, FR) (in progress) support DRAC Ile-de-France, Ambassade de France à Cuba, Ville de Paris (in progress)
CALENDAR
November 4 - 8, 2019 - creation residency in Havana, Cuba (5 days)
February 7 - 28, 2020 - creation residency in Havana, Cuba (15 days)
May 4 - 22, 2020 - creation residency in Havana, Cuba (15 days)
May 2020 - recording with the orchestra (2 days)
June 24 - July 10, 2020 - creation residency (+ lights) in Havana, Cuba (13 days)
July 2020 - technical assembly residency in Bolzano (5 days)
July 18, 2020 - set-up at Teatro Comunale di Bolzano
July 19, 2020 - set-up & rehearsals
July 20, 2020 - set-up & rehearsals
July 21, 2020 - premiere at festival Bolzano Danza / Tanz Bozen
A HYMN TO LIFE
Siá Cará, tira pa’lante is what one can hear on the streets of Havana. ‘Stop complaining and look for solutions’, an invitation to take destiny into your hands, a state of mind.
A few years ago, I discovered Cuba and the warmth of its people. A fascinating island, timeless, out of this world… And this revolution, this dream that changed everything, had given hope for a better society, with all its excellence, its culture. This ideal, seized by its contradictions, by ‘modernity’.
An incredible challenge, to focus once again on humanity, with Cubans…
A reflection on the essence of humanity…
A requiem for the dream of a better world, the ambition of youth, the fervour of a people…
A requiem for the awareness of strength and vulnerability…
A requiem for the beauty of one’s own disappearance…
To travel, and creating somewhere else, means absorbing other stories, different forms. Siá Cará is the meeting with this Cuban company, directed by a Spanish choreographer, Susana Pous, who has been living and working in Cuba for years. It is the meeting with Matteo Franceschini, Italian composer living in France, working internationally. Both, like myself, live and work far from their native country… Creating is vital to us, a means of survival, but also a way to struggle, against exclusion, against the ignorance of the other and the refusal of openness.
Telling each other, telling the world, is vital, essential, a necessity!
Siá Cará comes at a moment where choreographic and dramaturgic writing are questioned a lot in Cuba. The dancers I met refuse to believe that a contemporary choreographic language can grow from their afro-cuban heritage, so strong in movements and expressions. Dances that celebrate life, full of melancholy, mysteries, magic. For this specific creation I desire to pull inspiration from these dances that they insist on not dancing anymore today.
Testimonies, solos, group variations, to dance and express difference, the ambition to open up and transcend, on this music, a music for the dead, a requiem for a dream, a hymn to life, to a new future.
Radhouane El Meddeb
IMMORTALITY
The feeling of precariousness surrounding Mozart’s Requiem somehow highlights its magic, its fragility, but above all its immortality. I don’t wish to ‘rewrite’ Mozart, nor to interpret the Requiem as a funeral hymn, but am more attracted by its eternity, its durability and its capacity to open a window on profound reflexions on life, music, culture and creativity.
The central idea of the project is to work on the presence/absence of elements that arise, resurface of disappear. The filtered presence of Mozart’s ‘musical perfumes’ generates a set of symbols, gestures, harmonic references that appear, disappear, transform. REQUIEM will therefore explore the characteristics of perception, a work where the memory of the public is constantly solicited, troubled, disillusioned. The sudden and unexpected displacement of known elements provokes a kind of awakening consciousness, a memory game. Maybe a reconciliation of the living and the dead.
This approach will be supported by the dialogue between orchestral instruments and electroacoustic equipment, but also by my own presence on stage as live performer. I wish to further explore the figure of author/performer in order to experiment with new sounds ‘from the inside’. The written composition, mirroring the instrumental practice, opens new perspectives on the theatricality of sonic gesture.
Being from Trento, composing this work on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Haydn Foundation - founder of the Orchestra Haydn di Bolzano et Trento and major regional actor on the level of artistic development and musical heritage - , is of particular importance to me. Especially since the Orchestra’s first concert, in 1960, November 15th, in the concert hall of the Bolzano Conservatory, was Mozart’s Requiem.
Matteo Franceschini
RESOURCES
Bonilla-Chongo, Noel - "Réquiem – Siá Kará: aproximaciones a un proceso. (El cuerpo como territorio de rebeldía (I)", in: Cuba Escena, 8 February 2021