De-Voir
Piano
Premiered: by Kirsten Milenko with dancers Winnie Dias, Nicolas Glässman, Florian Pohl
13th March 2017 ;
Hamburg Staatsoper, Opera Stabile
Written in collaboration with dancer/choreographer Hayley Page
“We are all broken, that’s how the light gets in.”
Pas de trois; Winnie Dias, Nicolas Glässman and Florian Pohl performing De-Voir. Photo by Kiran West.
Opening:
We are memory, alone. Resting
futures we shape,
Fleeting;
Neither present nor distant.
Of that which we choose to behold
by that which we cannot choose to see;
One can recognise the shards in others
but rarely in the Self.
Fleeting, we rise and we rest.
Review:
“De-Voir presents an extremely fine and differentiated triad of surprises. We have an intricate triangle, especially since it is not clear whether it is only dreamed… The music, which was specially composed by Kirsten Milenko for this dance – she also plays De-Voir herself on the piano – supports the feeling laid impression. It is an inner action, and to what extent it is objectively real, the spectator must decide for himself… The cooperation of music and dance is very much to be praised. And composition is also a part of the choreography.”
— Gisela Sonnenburg, Ballett Journal
De-Voir: concept & process
The composition was created for a collaborative project with dancer and choreographer Hayley Page. The decision to perform the composition, also entitled De-Voir, onstage alongside the choreography arose well into the process. The decision of brought another element of movement/sound integration and consequently an additional layer of life to the performance. This allowed the live production and interaction of music to become a part of the scenery and staging for the work at large, with a chamber work performing as one entity. The cues and lines of interactions between dancers and musician could fuse and breathe together.
The driving concept behind the work first began with speculation on internalised displacement and the embodiment of isolation within the human spirit. It was a love story in time, with a man looking back on his life and seeing what was from the perspective of what is. The story is left open - with only the two points of time interacting as though through a pane of glass. Untouched and yet influenced by deep impressions of the other. The main character has lost someone and is left now in memory and recollection of her and what had been. Time becomes elusive and we enter into the realm of what may have been.
A project of many months between Hayley Page and myself, mostly spent on opposite ends of the globe, De-Voir was a true reminder of the power offered by live music and dance when composed with one another. In unity they offer an immense depth of communication of life’s divisions and unity as embodied within the performance art of a work and its world.
De-Voir premiered March 13 2017 at the Hamburg Staatsoper; Opera Stabile in tandem with the Hamburg Ballet Young Choreographers series. The piece was premiered by dancers: Winnie Dias, Florian Pohl, Nicolas Glässmann to choreography by Hayley Page, with myself performing piano live onstage with the dancers.
Taken 14th March 2017, following the second performance. From the left: Nicolas Glässman, Winnie Dias, Hayley Page, Kirsten Milenko, Florian Pohl.