Bal Passé

In total darkness, cut through by a few shards of light, the musicians and conductor wander, appearing and disappearing, as the music itself dances to the whims of the shadows and of the spirit.

How can we suggest the ovations of the body or the gestures of sound with projected light? How can we architect a new form within popular traditional structures without it feeling like a quotation? How can we reveal, as a sculptor would, the sonic shapes within the material? How can the adventurous conductor dare to wield the electronic instrument like a superpower activated by the flick of a wrist?

In Natura Morta, the Spanish composer Carlos de Castellarnau transforms the featured instrument into a monster of sound in an awesome creaking, growling machinery for live accordion and electronics, in which the one sounds stretched and the other sounds almost impossible. Ça tourne ça bloque, a piece for ten instruments and electronics by the Czech composer Ondřej Adámek, leads us on a dance through the Land of the Rising Sun, interweaving samples of Franco-Japanese vocal loops with playful acoustic mischief.  Tablado, by Franco-Brazilian composer Januibe Tejera, will follow, like an ‘afterparty’ for ensemble and electronics, unfurling from the ball of the imagination. Where light and music mix in the muscle memories of bodies that touch and collide. But above all, where euphoria feeds into memory; where freedom and pleasure give rise to hope.