Seems Like a Portal
A Coproduction of NOW! Neue Oper der Gegenwart and Between Feathers
Recorded on 27.04.2023 at Brick-15, Vienna
Scott Rubin | Music Composition and Projections
Performance Christine B Saulut | Choreography and Dance
Performance Antonis Rouvelas | Light Design
Violeta Puerta | Movie
between feathers | Performance: Elīna Viļuma-Helling, Audrey G. Perreault, Hannes Schöggl, Maria Mogas Gensana
“Seems Like a Portal” is a contemporary music theatre performance for one dancer, four musicians (flute, accordion, percussion, voice), lights, projections, and electronic sound. The audience witnesses the creation of a choreographed electro-acoustic world around the five performers. Their relationships are explored through sonic and physical improvisation, film, and motion-sensitive electronic sound. Using media as portals, the artists question and transform their perceptions of reality.
The performance is the result of a deep collaborative process that focused on cross-modal improvisation between the dancer/choreographer, the musicians, and the composer. The group began exchanging video clips of sound/movement improvisations in late 2019. In 2022, Christine Saulut Bonansea and Scott Rubin met in New York City at the Baryshnikov Arts Center to improvise together, explore concepts, and sketch scenes. Finally, in March 2023, the whole group met at the Kunsthaus Helleweg residency in Versmold, Germany. It was then that the group got to explore the choreographic, audio, and visual material gathered over the years and create relationships between them and each other.
The projections, electronic sound, and choreography emerged from this process. Videos of the musicians improvising in solitude are superimposed and projected with live dance and sound. Salut Bonansea’s choreography generates sound using data streaming from wearable motion-sensors. This performance explores our relationships with past and present art-making, forming networks between movement and sound through composition and live audio-visual electronics.
This project was performed live in Vienna and Graz in April 2023 and then translated into film by Violeta Lenz. This project was co-produced by NOW! Oper der Gegenwart and between feathers. We would like to thank the city of Graz, Land Steiermark, the city of Vienna, the Austrian Ministry of the Arts, Culture, the Civil Service and Sport, the Kunsthaus Helleweg and the Austrian Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs for making this project possible.