etb English
Theatre
Berlin International Performing Arts Center

This performance problematizes the normative spatial and kinespheric relationships between the musician and the dancer. Simon Rose (saxophone) and Andrew Wass (dance) investigate the consequences of flattening the hierarchy of the spatial and kinetic operations that govern their relative practices. What is revealed when the musician and dancer have equal access to spacing, level, and facing?

A second investigative trajectory of their performance is to simultaneously discern the compositional limitations and recognize the freedom suggested by the immediacy of the moment. As the sonic and corporeal palettes reveal themselves, an infinite number of ways of manipulating those palettes is also revealed. By limiting their performance to the immediate and not referencing anything outside the performance space, they do not impose any allusions or illustrative restrictions upon the observers. The observers are freed from expectations of meaning and able to craft their own reception of the events on stage.

By experimenting with aleatoric processes, Andrew Wass finds that movement reveals an inherent awkwardness, a humor that echoes our own vulnerabilities. He formalizes the coincidental and emphasizes the conscious processes of composition that are the generative source of much of his works. Influenced heavily by his undergraduate studies of biochemistry at U.C. San Diego, Andrew works by creating a defined, almost crystalline palette in order to generate a myriad of possibilities. The possibilities are reduced and concentrated in the moments of execution and reception. The Judson Dance Theater artists Deborah Hay and Steve Paxton have had a deep impact on him as a choreographer and dancer. Hay’s use of detailed spatial choreographic scores has influenced how Wass negotiates space performatively and choreographically on stage. Paxton’s development of the dynamic weight sharing modality of contact improvisation has shaped how Wass moves and engages with other dancers. The majority of the performance pieces that he has created involve a score that governs the spatial and/or the corporeal choices of the dancers. He has performed in work by Nancy Stark Smith, Mary Overlie, Jess Curtis, Nina Martin, among others. He has taught at festivals and universities in Japan, Germany, and throughout the United States. A member of the performance groups Non Fiction and Lower Left, he is a graduate of the MA program of Solo/Dance/Authorship at the Hochschulübergreifendes Zentrum für Tanz in Berlin.

Simon Rose is a musician and researcher from London, UK. A professional saxophonist (baritone and alto), Rose has performed frequently in Europe and North America. He has a commitment to developing practice through improvisation processes has encompassed working with large groups as well as the more usual small groups. Rose has a particular interest in the solo form and has recorded critically acclaimed solo CDs on alto (FMR) and baritone (Not Two). Rose’s PhD thesis: Improvisation, music and learning; an interpretive phenomenological analysis (Glasgow Caledonian University, 2012) interviewed world-leading improvisers in US, Canada, UK and Germany. This was his third research project concerning the potential of improvisation. His extensive teaching experience in drama and music includes schools, colleges and universities, as well as work in special educational needs and “permanently excluded” contexts. His early training in drama led him to work as a professional actor-musician in theater-in-education and he has toured schools, prisons and hospitals. His research interest in interdisciplinary relationships and improvisation processes has developed through his particular experience in music, drama and education.