Wiener Festwochen: T U M U L U S

‘A dream so often dreamed: to enable a community of people dancing and singing together at the same time, thereby transcending the traditional boundaries between the two disciplines and their sibling rivalry.’

For some time now choreographer François Chaignaud has been exploring the utopian potential of polyphonic melodies in order to create a fluid, collective body. His new, large-format production is a collaboration with the musician and choirmaster Geoffroy Jourdain in which a total of 13 dancing singers, i.e. singing dancers, enter into a dialogue with the tumulus burial mound that dominates the stage. The tension underpinning the spectrum between vitality and transience is rendered collectively, harmoniously, and with vocal parity. From the early Renaissance master of counterpoint Josquin Desprez to Claude Vivier and his Musik für das Ende, composed in 1971 and previously rarely performed, t u m u l u s offers a sensory experience that sees the vulnerability common to all human beings as a prerequisite for spirituality.