"des hommes"
Premiere: Nov. 2005 / fabrik Heeder, Krefeld
Duration: 60 Min.
Choreografie / Dance: Morgan Nardi, Andreas Simon
Visual art: Naoko Tanaka
Live-Percussion: Waldo Karpenkiel
Light: Reinhard Lange
Co-produced by Fabrik Heeder, Krefeld
Promoted by the Office for Culture of the city Krefeld in conjunction with the “fused-TanzKunst” Festival
 |  |  |
|---|---|---|
 |
With a travelling gaze, not lingering but rather constantly searching, the interior of memories are examined. By returning to the self, to a time that seems lost, the man following his desire becomes the instrument leading him towards the highest state of fulfilment. Truth does not need proof; it involves reducing something to its ultimate simplicity. One can only understand the world through one’s own experiences, and here I show what I experience.
“If you want to build a ship, don’t start by collecting wood, cutting planks and allocating tasks, but rather awaken in people a longing for the wide endless ocean.” (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry)
Tour
19. & 26. November 2005, Studiobühne Fabrik Heeder, Krefeld
im Rahmen der Reihe "fused - TanzKunst in Krefeld"
Press
Primitive Dances in a Tent and Cave
Many things are simple and beautiful in their simplicity, yet one seldom encounters such things in our excited times. Two dancers meet with a percussionist; two movement artists encounter the origin of all movement: rhythm. The Culture Bureau’s “TanzKunst” series “fused” made possible the meeting between Morgan Nardi’s company Ludica and the Krefeld drummer Waldo Karpenkiel, which resulted in the piece “des hommes” (“Men”) that is currently premiering in the Fabrik Heeder. Ludica consists primarily of Morgan Nardi and the Japanese artist Naoko Tanaka, whose videos have always played a major role in their previous pieces. This is not true of “des hommes,” although the use of projections and above all a certain similar technique is also important here. Andreas Simon is the second dancer next to Morgan Nardi in “des hommes,” and Karpenkiel provides a wide range of instrumentation using various drums, cymbals and gongs live on stage.
One can visualize a trip to the past in the piece, a recollection of primitive dances. A (nomad’s) tent and a kind of “cave scene” reinforce this idea, as does the simplest of all projection technologies. On the wall of the tent, and later on a large piece of balloon fabric that serves as the sky and also at the end – hanging down vertically – separates the spectators from the stage, Naoko Tanaka projects shadow images.
Karpenkiel is integrated into the stage performance and does not only stand behind his impressive set of instruments on the right edge of the stage. At one point he drives (in the true sense of the word) Morgan Nardi in front of him by shaking a tambourine. In the “cave scene” the percussionist sits on a slit drum, elicits a soft beating melody from it, and sings. Karpenkiel “tells” a story here about rhythm, while the dancers sit around the campfire before him and listen.
Rhythm and movement meet one another; Karpenkiel’s collaboration with the dancers thus becomes the topic of their collective piece. Only the beginning, which persists too long in the atmospheric, seems a little unsuccessful, but otherwise the simplicity of the structure, the intensity of the dialogue, the clarity of the images and the silence between the individual scenes, which is meditative but not without tension, are gripping. Everyone justly deserves heartfelt applause.
Klaus-M. Schmidt, Westdeutsche Zeitung Krefeld, 21 November 2005