When was the world premiere?
2008
Who was the visual design?
Anthony Gormley
Who was the music by?
Szymon Brzoska
What is Sidi Larbis background?
- grew up in a muli cultrual, multi lingual, multi religious household
- born in belgium where they were surrounded by other cultures
- enjoyed folk dance at school
- loved to draw
- took classes in jazz, ballet, hip hop, flamenco and tap after winning a dance contest (never properly trained)
- won another contest for his solo combining vogueing, hip hop and african dance
What were some genrel influence on Larbi?
- in belgium they had pride in thier artists, Larbi liked to visualise reality by drawing
- Bruce Lee films, Kung Fu movement
- Music videos on TV showing hip hop
- Janet Jackson and Prince
- studied under William Forsythe, Trisha Brown and Pina Bausch (tanztheater) experiencing contemporary, modern, classical and pop culture dance
- Larbi does yoga so he uses his extreme flexibility in his work
Sidi Larbis stylistic features (movement and subject matter)
- Projects which explore everyday life, ethics, beliefes and philosophies - wants to define/ solve them but can’t, themes always relate to learning
- Interdisciplinary approach = dance, theater, music and muti media as equal parts
- connected episodes over a narrative
- Tanztheater = speech, music, song, sounds, interaction with props, set and film
- Fluidity used in the forms of arm and hand gestures
- Gestures - hands are a symbol of basic communication
- Polarisation = fluidity is offset with strength and attack
- Syncronisation system (events happen in unison) = text, movement and gesture syncronise to have a theatrical effect
- Displaced manipulation (an object or person controls another without physical contact)
- collabiration with artists and dancers who have different backgrounds and techniques to his own
- dances in his own work
Sidi Larbis stylistic features (physical and aural setting)
- Set = architectual spaces, manipulative sets
- collabirations with Anthony Gormley
- Lighting = sometimes used to manipulate audiences perception of the space
- Costume = simple everyday clothing allows dancers to be seen as people often with a cultrual refference
- Use of props
- Collabirates with A Filetta (a group with he often sings)
- Polarisation - silence contrasts with sudden sound
- Text, voice - singing and speaking (telling a story with speech disinfluency so it sounds like its being told for the first time)
Describe Ook
(2000)
- Collabiratio with theater Stap (center for disabled actors)
- About the overdose of information one handles on a daily basis and how it can shape ones dreams. Based on the performers dreams (becoming a doctor or driving a car)
- Human rights questioned during the creation - what are disabled people allowed to do and why? (why downs syndorne people wanting to have children is sometimes a taboo subject)
- Movement = pointing at the audience (hand gestures), riding bikes around the stage
- Visual = everyday clothes
- Aural = performers shouting at the audience, car beeping sounds, dog barking
Describe Bable (words)
(2010)
- collabiration with Damien Jalet and Anthony Gormley
- Theme = explores language and its relationship with nationhood, identiy and religion
- Starting point = the tale of ‘The Tower of Bable’ from the bible - about God making everyone speak differernt languages so they couldn’t understand each other
- Set = 5 huge 3D square metal frames which show a city which the dancers move around
- Movement = hand gestures, looks like sign language, gun sumbol matches to a gunshot in the music (synconisation system) and people falling to the floor (getting shot), pedestrian movement moving the boxes around
- Music = use of singing, shouting and laughing from the dancers, musicians can be seen behind the cyclorama, polarisation of intense fast drum beats contrasting with a solo violin and operatic singing, music visualisation (movement goes with the music)
- Lighting = red matching with the gun shots, blood?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhTQ86gY3qk
Describe Noetic
(2014)
- Theme = explores mans compulsive need to structure everything and our longing to break free of the rules
- Set = by Gormley, geomertic floor made up of differernt size squares, circle structures used in the movement as well as long plastic poles
- Music = traditional Japaneese music, robotic sounding voice speaks
- Movement = repeated gestures/ poses, use of voice and singing from dancers, robotic and mechanical movement
- costume = black suits and dresses
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrpbhmzoGSo
Describe Fractus
(2015)
- Theme = The fracture between the individual and soceity. Inspired by the texts of a Jewish linguist and political philospher who wrote about the manipulation of propaganda vs facts
- Dancers = inlcudes dancers with very different backgrounds and training some French, American, Spanish with training in circuis, flamenco, hip hop and breakdance
- Music = live music cololabiration with Japanese, korean and indian musicians, live singing on stage, musicians on stage
- Set = use of props, chairs, old fashioned cameras with the big flashes,
- Costume = everyday clothing
- Movement = facial expressions showing pain and suffering, complex duet work with mirroring and off timing, someone shooting someone constantly as they react to the many bullets, the dead body knocks over a triangle and causes a domino effect
- dancer talking into a microphone about indoctrination and propaganda, lots of hand gestures
- whispering about the media and society
- Set = flat wooden triganglels which dancers move around to make differernt shapes, chairs, guns
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-UHo1Un8vs
What are the starting points for movement in sutra?
Shaolin kung fu
antony gormleys boxes
buddhist philosophy
yoga
pedestrian movement
french sign language
tai chi
shaolin temple
what are the 5 key themes in sutra?
freedom and containment
old and new china
journey of acceptance
building and destrotying
transformation
What is old vs new china?
Old
- monks from sutra come from the oldest monastery in china
- monks had to fight to defend thier homes from bandits
- they were used to protects the emprorer and bestowed divine honour
-justification of using violence as it goes against thier religion
- traditions
- social heirchy (born into your position)
new
- advances in technology and buildings (busy cities)
- no longer needing to fight
- kung fu for mental and phsyical well being
- western steryotypes and influences (fashion, food)
Describe Gormley
- sculptor
- facinated by the human form
- explores relationship between body and space
- studied buddhism
- the fragility of the human form contrasts with the industrial materials he uses
- boxes look like coffins
- considers the cultrual superiority of the west throguh his works
Describe Larbis costume
- Mix of eastern (bottom half - trousers with elastics) and western (top half - suit jacket and shirt and trainers - casual)
Describe the monks costume
- Robes and shoes they wear in everyday life
- nasty, cheap material
- change into black suits with a shirt and dress shoes
Analyse larbis costume
- Keeps him seperate from the monks
- Partly in their world and partly not
Analyse the monks costume
- didn’t want to be percived as western steryotypes
- uniformity, equality, humble, no ego, idealism or greed
- when wearing these robes they are not allowed to drink, smoke or eat western food
- costume change signifies old and new china
Describe the lighting throughout the piece
- plain, un shadowed, omni lit space so the audience can pick what the want to look at
- not overwhelming
- the designers were not asked to create a specific atmosphere
Describe section 1 of sutra
Sword
- Larbi and Dom Dom sit cross legged facing each other at polar ends of an aluminium box with a 5 x 4 set of small wooden boxes set up to make a bigger box (down stage right) with a spot light on them
- Dom Dom puts his chin on his hand
- Larbi points his finger down towards the boxes and moves it forwards into Dom Doms space which he follows with his eyes
- at the same time a monk enters back stage stage right stepping on a replica of the wooden boxes which the spotlight reveals as it gets bigger
- The monk follows the path of Larbis finger and pulls out a sword wedged in between two boxes at the same time a note is played on the violin (music visualisation)
- Larbi points his finger up wards and on a diagonal which the monk follows with his sword and a violin solo begins to play
- The monk performs attacking and defensice positions sweeping and stabbing the sword as he travels on the boxes always matching larbis finger
- Dom Dom shifts uncomfotably watching larbis finger
- At the end the warrior monk calls out and the music stops
- Larbi opens the palm of his hand and they both flip the boxes over 2 times each and the replica does the same with the monks inside calling out timing cues
- The warrior monk stands on the last line of boxes watching, larbi and Dom Dom turn the last row over
- Dom Dom steals his sword and exists the stage, the warrior monk jumps into a box and larbi turns the last box over to find a wooden staff (Gunshu) which he picks up and climbs onto the box
