Glissando

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Glissando is a musical performance based on the piano works of Frédéric Chopin.

The word Glissando is a technical term describing the piano technique – close to the heart of the great Polish composer – where one glides from one piano key to the next in order to assert a more human quality, a more dramatic and romantic music. In this sense, the performance will glide in a musical exchange between Chopin and more contemporary musical configurations. In Glissando, the sources of inspirations will emerge from the musical matter as primordial components upon which the entire performance will be built. Further on, a narrative will slightly overlay the piece, like an abstract opera missing its libretto, in keeping with the musical and dramaturgical challenges of the twenty-first Century.

The play will thus explore distinct artistic periods while implementing several types of instrumentation. All the music will be produced and performed live, on stage, by the musician-performers. The progression of the musical matter will traverse nearly two hundred years of music history and might end, for example, with an electronic adaptation of one of Chopin’ s score.

It is in this creative process, where music is the base upon which we build the images, and not vice versa, that the strength of this formal construction and abstract show reside.

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With: Klara Bielawka, Julia Kijowska, Valérie Liengme, Eduard Mont de Palol, Gianfranco Poddighe, Zuzanna Sikorska, Xavier Tchili (Piotr Polak and Agata Wątróbska in the premiered version)

Conception & Direction: Christian Garcia-Gaucher
Music: Frédéric Chopin, Christian Garcia-Gaucher, Clive Jenkins
Texts: William Blake and correspondance of Frédéric Chopin, George Sand and their friends.
Assistant: Morgane Hamon-Swierk
Dramaturgy: Stéphane Noël
Lights: Stéphane Gattoni
Stage design: Serge Perret
Stage design assistants: Yangalie Besson, Dorota Proba & Iga Kowalczuk
Costumes: Agnieszka Stanasiuk
Sound: Clive Jenkins
Choir directors: Ola Troczyńska & Zosia Sokołowska
Production: Małgorzata Cichulska & Stéphane Noël
Graphic design: Bartek Arobal
Photographer: Tomasz Dubiel
Video documentation: Karol Rakowski

Glissando is a production of Teatr Dramatyczny Warsaw (PL) and b000m – Christian Gérôme-Gaucher (CH), in co-production with Théâtre Arsenic Lausanne (CH), Nuithonie Fribourg (CH) and La Bâtie – Festival de Genève (CH).

Made with the support of the City of Lausanne, of the Affaires culturelles du Canton Vaud, Pro Helvetia – Swiss arts council, Loterie Romande, Migros cultural percentage, Ernst Göhner Foundation and Artephila Foundation.

Thanks: .HBC Berlin, Alexia Balandjian, Dasha Belova, Paulina Capała, Łukasz Czapski, Nicolas Defawe, Tomasz Dubiel, Fleur Helluin, Marianne Jacquet, Christophe Jaquet, Karolina Ochab, Karol Rakowski, Stephan Rothfuß, Theo Solnik, Joanna Warsza.

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22->23/10/2010 | Warsaw (PL) | Teatr Dramatyczny

16->19/12/2010 | Warsaw (PL) | Teatr Dramatyczny

20->22/01/2011 | Warsaw (PL) | Teatr Dramatyczny

18->19/03/2011 | Fribourg (CH) | Nuithonie

04/04/2011 | 19.00 | Warsaw (PL) | Teatr Dramatyczny

03/09/2011 | Geneva (CH) | La Bâtie

14->15/02/2012 | Lausanne (CH) | Théâtre de l’Arsenic

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