2000 Ft / 10% discount for season ticket holders / 15% discount if you buy tickets for both evening!
Co-organized with the Budapest Autumn Festival
Post-show discussion! After the performance on 12th October, Szabolcs Molnár music-critic will talk to the artists and the audience. Everybody is welcome!
Duration: 45-45'
12 October 2009, 8pm
Both Sitting Duet
13 October 2009, 8pm
Speaking Dance
‘If Einstein had ever reflected on dance, it would have looked much like the work of Jonathan Burrows’. (The Guardian)
"Burrows, a former soloist of The Royal Ballet ‘… is Britain's Columbus, dance's explorer, a man in quest of new lands and unknown territory.... He is a true original." (The Financial Times)
The pairing of Burrows and composer Matteo Fargion has produced a series of performances that have become the most internationally talked about British dance of the past five years.
This work is a gentle exploration into how the relationship between music and dance is perceived, and the fragile but permeable boundaries between the two worlds. It is a formal but humorous meditation on the nature of communication, and the relationship between the two performers and with the audience.
Jonathan Burrows is one of the UK’s leading choreographers. He performs around the world, with 43 international tour dates in 2007. He started his career as a soloist with The Royal Ballet in London, but formed the Jonathan Burrows Group in 1988 to present his own work.
The company travelled widely and gained an international reputation with pieces such as Stoics (1991), Very (1992), Our (1994), The Stop Quartet (1996) and Things I Don't Know (1997). Since 2000, Burrows has worked with other performers, notably non-dancers. In 2001 he presented Weak Dance Strong Questions (2001), a collaboration with the Dutch theatre director Jan Ritsema. This was followed with the widely critically acclaimed trilogy of performances of Both Sitting Duet (2002), The Quiet Dance (2005) and Speaking Dance (2006) with the Italian composer and long-time collaborator Matteo Fargion.
Burrows’ recent work is noted for its intelligence and humour, but also sometimes its lack of lighting, costumes, or even music. Audiences in 36 countries around the world have responded positively to Burrows’ work, but some critics have found his pieces inscrutable, confusing or boring. Other high profile collaborators include Sylvie Guillem's performance of his choreography in Adam Robert's film Blue Yellow in 1996, and his invitation in 1997 to choreograph for William Forsythe's Ballet Frankfurt. In 2003 Burrows and Matteo Fargion received the 2003 – 2004 New York Dance and Performance Bessie Awards for Both Sitting Duet.
Matteo Fargion was born in Milan, Italy in 1961. He studied composition with Kevin Volans at the University of Natal, South Africa, and later with Howard Skempton in London. He met Jonathan Burrows in 1988, and has since written music for many of his pieces, including ‘Dull Morning’, ‘Stoics’, ‘Very’, ‘Our’, ‘Hands’, ‘The Stop Quartet’ (with Kevin Volans) and ‘Things I Don't Know’, in which he also performed ‘Donna Che Beve’ for 3 amplified cardboard boxes. Matteo has also written music for theatre including an oratorio (‘Das Kontingent’) commissioned by and performed at the Schaubühne Berlin and TAT Frankfurt, a chamber opera (‘Le Bellezze d’Hortensia’) at the Theaterhaus in Stuttgart, as well as incidental music for many productions at the Residenz Theater Munich. In 2004 he wrote music for Thomas Ostermeier’s prize winning production of Jon Fosse's new play ‘The Girl on the Sofa’ shown at the Edinburgh International Festival, and in 2005 he collaborated and performed in Canadian choreographer Lynda Gaudreau’s ‘Document 4’ in Gent, Belgium. His piece ‘Duets’, written in collaboration with Kevin Volans, is released on Black Box Records. Matteo also runs composition workshops at PARTS, the school of Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker in Brussels.
"Absurdist self-indulgence you'll be thinking, but what you see is revelation and joy.”
(The Evening Standard, London)
"One of the most enchanting things I've ever seen."
(The Daily Telegraph, London)
"By now we ought to be accustomed to the surprises the wry, spry and elegant pairing of Jonathan Burrows and Matteo Fargion keep springing on us, but somehow we're not; they've always got an extra rabbit in the hat to take us unawares. With Speaking Dance there's a whole family of baby rabbits in that roomy hat"
(Ballet Magazine, UK)
“When composer Matteo Fargion and dancer Jonathan Burrows perform together, they are like two middle-aged boffins retreating into a garden shed. Both men are in their mid-40s, balding and dressed for comfort rather than style; when they collaborate on stage, they could almost be following an obsessively drawn up list of tasks - phrases of material to be analysed, details of performance to be perfected, ideas to ponder.
But Three Duets (the summation of four years' work) has an absolutely public aim. Burrows and Fargion are fascinated by the ways in which music and dance connect, and they use each of the duets to reveal the relationship from a different perspective.
In Both Sitting Duet, they start with the basics. Working without instruments and almost without technique, the men become immersed in what are basically a series of brisk hand-jives. They barely rise out of their chairs as they perform. But the point of the duet is that they are able to magic their restricted vocabulary into sophisticated dance and music, twisting simple gestures into a variety of shapes and rhythms so that they mesmerise and dazzle.
In the next duet, Quiet Dance, the men expand their operations into full-bodied movement and vocals. Again, the basic material sounds unpromisingly banal - stiffly constrained walking patterns, serenaded by low-pitched yowls or a rhythmic hiss, all voiced by the dancers themselves. Yet the way the men elaborate on these creates an uncannily visceral connection between lung and leg power - song and dance. It also deepens the feeling of intimacy between them. Pale, edgy Burrows and the more solid, sanguine-looking Fargion are physically mismatched, but in the final duet, with wordplay added to their vocabulary, a vestige of shared storytelling and history creeps in. During one section, they riff on the verbal shorthand of different dance genres (ballroom, ballet and disco), and we can almost see them partnering each other on a real-life dance floor.
There is no point pretending, however, that this odd-couple act will attract a mainstream audience. At nearly three hours long, the performance defeated several people on opening night. Yet, like all the best boffins, Burrows and Fargion mix their idiosyncrasies with passion and a kind of genius. The joy of these duets is that they deliver dance and music in ways we never expect.”
(Judith Mackrell, The Guardian)
Created and performed by:
Jonathan Burrows, Matteo Fargion
With the support of:
Kaaitheater Brussels; Dance Umbrella London; NOTT Dance Festival, England; Joint Adventures Munich; Dance 4; PARTS/Rosas; Laban London és a Jonathan Burrows Group.
