„ILLUMINATIONS D’EAU”
Wednesday 25 June 2008, at 21.30
Concert with video and dance by Willy Merz and Antje Rieck
Music by Sigismondo d’India and Willy Merz
Texts by Ludovico D’Agliè
Video and scene conception Antje Rieck
With Gianluigi Ghiringhelli countertenor, Barbara Zanichelli soprano
Vincent Pausanias tap-dance
Rodney Prada viola, Francesca Gosio cello, Enzo Ferraris double bass,
Riccardo Balbinutti percussion, Antonio Valentino hasrpsichord, Andrea
Chenna electronics
Willy Merz director
This performance is part of METEORITE IN GIARDINO (Meteorite
in the Garden) curated by Maria Centonze
Sincere thanks to the Teatro Regio di Torino
”ILLUMINATIONS D’EAU” is the second of eight performances of
Meteorite in Giardino, an event combining the visual arts, theatre, music
and performance, curated by Maria Centone, whose title is taken from a
work by Mario Merz of 1976.
The outside areas of the Foundation, in particular the ‘basin’ that
contained the silos of the former heating plant, housed the installations
that were visible until the Sunday after every event, during the
foundation’s normal opening hours, from 11.00 to 19.00.
The project presented on 25 June emerges from the meeting of Willy
Merz’s music, the scene conception and video of Antje Rieck and the tiptap reinvented in contemporary vein by Vincent Pausanias.
Willy Merz’s composition, an interpretation of Baroque sensitivity, takes
its inspiration from the discovery of some fragments of the opera Zalizura,
with a libretto by Ludovico d’Agliè and music by Sigismondo d’India. The
Baroque theme of the clash between water and light gives rise to a
contemporary musical in a series of arias, concerted pieces and
instrumental pieces. Electronic sounds blend in with the sounds of the
period instruments; the estranging vocality of the countertenor is flanked
by extensive use of the percussion.
Water is the guiding element in the work by Antje Rieck: a video
installation projected onto two large screens that show, under the titles,
Enlightment and Elementare, a single subject: the search for harmony. In
the first video, the artist in a swimming pool films men and women
swimming in the water but as though they are floating in an empty space,
and overturns the images until all references to the laws of physics are
lost. In the second, water is perceived but is no longer recognisable: a
metaphorical element for the energy that moves and produces
consonance and correspondence.
The musical gestures are amplified by the German artist’s video
projections, assisted by the interactive choreography of the dance.
Entrance free.
The installation can be seen from25 to 30 June
Info: phone +39.011.19719437
fondazione merz
via limone 24 10141 torino italia
t +39.011.19719437 f +39.011.19719805
www.fondazionemerz.org - [email protected]