sound machine – a theatrical concert
ON STAGE: BÉATRICE JACCARD, MASSIMO BERTINELLI, FRANÇOIS GENDRE
IDEA: MASSIMO BERTINELLI, FRANÇOIS GENDRE DIRECTOR/STAGE SET/LIGHTING: PETER SCHELLING MUSIC/COMPOSITION: MASSIMO BERTINELLI, FRANÇOIS GENDRE, BÉATRICE JACCARD CHOREOGRAPHY: BÉATRICE JACCARD VIDEO: PETER SCHELLING VIDEO CUT /ASSISTANT STAGE SET: SERGEJ NIKOKOSHEV PRODUCTION MANAGER/ ADMINISTRATION: BEATRICE ROSSI
First night performance at Espace Moncor Fribourg/ Switzerland February 13th 2003.
A coproduction with Rote Fabrik Zurich
“machine à sons – sound machine” is a multi-media performance which removes boundaries between concert, theatre and dance. The poetry of the performances is strongly influenced by surrealism, Dadaism and absurdity.
In this offbeat piece, which is a musical concert in dance, compagnie drift tries to surprise the audience and itself.
Musically and scientifically, we investigate the question of whether the inaudible can be made audible.
How does a fly scream when it bumps into a burning-hot light bulb, for example?
What does Mr Fish say to Ms Fish when it asks for her fin in marriage?
What does the rose whisper when the sun comes up?
What would we hear in the garden at night if we had more suitable ears?
All these inaudible noises have been gathered with the aid of special equipment. Out of the now audible sounds, we have composed music and turned it into a concert.
We also take a look at the feelings of the scientific staff that for many years have devoted all their efforts to these not insignificant questions.
Performances: Tanzhaus Wasserwerk Zurich (CH), Teatro Dimitri Verscio (CH), Blurred Borders Intern. Dance Festival San Diego (USA), EXPO.02 – Arteplage Biel (CH), Alte Feuerwache Mannheim (D), Espace Moncor Fribourg (CH), Rote Fabrik Zurich (CH), Intern. Theatre Festival Varna Summer (BL), Théâtre la Fourmi Lucerne (CH), CCS- Centre Culturel Suisse Paris (F), 4 Days in Motion Prag (CZ), Cibulak – 16th Intern. Theatre Festival, Pezinok (SK),Open Look Festival St. Petersburg (RU), Touch-3 Archangels (RU), Festival Bunte Wähne (A & CZ), MU Theatre Budapest (H), Truc Spherique –Teater Stanica, Zilina (SK), THEALTER International – 14th Festival for Independent Theatres, Szeged (H) – 14. Intern. Tanztheaterfestival, Graz (A), Theater an der Sihl Zurich (CH), East/West Dance Festival, San Diego (USA), The Red House, Sofia (BG),Basler Tanztage – TheatreRoxy, Basle (CH), 16th Intern. Festival of Modern Danse - Alytus, Kaunas and Vilnius (LT), Theater am Gleis, Winterthur (CH), Blickfelder Festival, Zurich (CH), man.in.fest, Cluj Napoca and Tirgu Mures (RO), INFANT- 14. Intern. Festival of Alternative and New Theatre, Novi Sad and Belgrade (SER), XV Annual International Dance Conference and Performance Festival, Bytom (PL), Teatro del Gatto, Ascona (CH), City trips – IETM Meeting Zurich, excerpts (CH), Théâtre la Fourmi, Lucerne (CH), Teatro Ticino, Wädenswil (CH), Tanec Praha – Pardubice, Ceske Budejovice, Prague, Brno (CZ), High Performance Rodeo, Calgary (CAN), The Canoe Theatre Festival at Workshop West, Edmonton (CAN), Dance Center - PuSh Intern. Performing Arts Festival, Vancouver (CAN)
Award for the most original exploration of one segment of theatrical language at 14th INFANT Festival in Novi Sad (Serbia) in 2008.
Press excerpts
“...With the comic-satirical concert théâtral, Drift took its audience on a trip to the world of sound experiment – thereby showing how fish can make proposals of marriage and how charming an unusually imaginative production can be...The surreal world of ‘sound machine’ is exemplified above all by video projections created by Peter Schelling....like the one of the fish which sits like a white falcon on the hand of Gendre, singing in his ear....The balancing act between the outwardly comic and the hidden intention was successful...” baz, Basle, 25th September 2006
„...Famous for their study of the absurd in everyday life, their multi-media show "machine a sons" (sound machine) is refreshingly original and showcases an amazing range of talent and rare performance style...
Needless to say, this is a dreamlike, surreal show..."we are not funny and we do not want to be funny, but sometimes we cannot help it because life is like this." HA! This group is very funny, no matter how serious they play it... in the end... you're left to reflect on this tangle of bewildering, poignant images.sandiego.comreview, 16.4.2006
“…In “sound machine,” every part – theatre, music, dance, visual – is so fully developed that if you listed, minute by minute, what was going on, it would take 20 pages… The show is also a concert – composed by the performers – of gurgles, pops, thumps and songs, often electronically distorted . . . until a moment of astonishing beauty, when Jaccard plays a wistful air on the accordion and Bertinelli reveals a high tenor (almost a countertenor) of ravishing purity. ..Jaccard choreographed, and she's a riveting mover who sometimes explodes into a Calvinist belly dance – perfect abdominal undulations but a closed face and held-in sensuality. All three performers use a wonderfully jerky style as if someone were zapping their joints with electric shocks... “machine à sons” is also a complex, fascinating piece of visual art. Peter Schelling designed the set with its sprouting wires and vegetables in specimen jars. He also did the video that blends seamlessly with the live performance… Compagnie Drift calls its work surrealist, and certainly “machine à sons” contains the odd juxtapositions and hallucinatory intensity of surrealist art…” Janice Steinberg UNION-TRIBUNE, April 17, 2006
„….If I were king, I would try to place those guiding the fortunes of DRIFT under contract and pay them generous salaries as court jesters.
This is because their humour is charged with sophisticated intelligence, extreme sensibility and irony while they are, at the same time, being apparently absolutely serious…
…What a pleasant surprise! Their music is extremely enjoyable, their singing is superb and their electric songs sneak into the ear, where they linger….From now on the music making „Drifters“ have become my musical favourites, right after Yello!...
… The fast rhythm and the movement of body parts in unexpected sequences combine to produce a vibrant dance. These not only demonstrate the virtuoso ability of Béatrice Jaccard, but also the originality of her thought – the irregular aesthetic order that reigns in her head.
… Special praise is also due to Peter Schelling who has created a wonderful little opus revealing a post-dadaistic clowning spirit and who is also responsible for sound and video.
Ellenfény, Lásló Rokas, Budapest, May 2005
The musicality of peanuts and flower pots
“…When scientists play electrifying solos on air guitars, a mixture of tomatoes and peanuts starts to sing and little people seek shelter in a flower pot, { one finds oneself engulfed in the world of the Drift Dance Company….emphatically shrill and imaginative….” Kronenzeitung, Austria, 19th July 2005
"...Dances with sound effects...In "sound machine", Cie Drift gives priority to sound rather than sight, at least on the face of things. In the guise of experimenters with sound, Massimo Bertinelli, François Gendre and Béatrice Jaccard, directed by Peter Schelling, practice making the noises of oranges and fish, seize rhythms from out of the air and sing melodies that have apparently flown up to them, while a video screen shows them floating on clouds and satirizing the all-tech music business in gesture and mime... Cie Drift has gone down new paths and does it masterfully, with its own unique vision and ear for the absurdity of everyday life...“
Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Zurich, Switzerland, December 18th, 2001
"...laugh-out-loud hilarious and endlessly inventive. Company Drift‘s work blurred the borders between dance, theater and music – and those between planned-to-the-last-detail performance and a feeling of wacky spontaneity...sometimes deadpan and sometimes with edgy intensity...a dazzling highlight..." The San Diego Union Tribune, San Diego, USA, May 18, 2002
Blurred borders festival expands the mind...
„...in sharp contrast was the ingenious hilarity in the brilliant work by the internationally acclaimed trio from Zurich Company Drift, using dance, music, spoken word and multi-media, giving the audience an Ernie Kovacs look at our obsession with analyzing EVERYTHING, while masking the uncharted territory of our own neuroses. An evening of dance and theater art to stay with you a lifetime.“ San Diego Live, San Diego, USA, May 2002
“…This unusual piece, “Machine à sons” – the Sound Machine – is a concert which also contains dance sequences…..the Dance Company Cie Drift subtly and with a strong sense of humour investigates the poetry of fringe conditions and the absurdity of everyday life… and demonstrates how the fantastic hides behind the bland. ” Freiburger Nachrichten, Switzerland, 14th February 2003
„Haven’t you always believed that fish are mute, tomatoes turn red silently, and that foot joints become audible only if they are become arthritic?
It’s time that such opinions were corrected…in view of the findings of the researchers, one should not be surprised to find that pulsating rhythms and electronic sounds lie within the bodies. Jaccard mutates from a stern typist to a hip-swinging vamp, Bertinelli from a cool analyst to a hot-blooded percussionist, Gendre from a well-behaved clerk to a snooty bassist…the imitation of the body language of rock musicians is entrancingly presented… turning still waters to torrential rivers...”
Aargauer Zeitung (Aargovian News), Switzerland 21st February 2003
.”…wholeheartedly three eccentric researchers in green gowns employ various methods of capturing sound. Thanks to stethoscopes and headsets, lemons turn into noisy objects and incense proclaims sacred music.
Nutmeg and dead fish are also examined as is the body itself.
Seeming to be in a condition of expanded consciousness, sounds appear to increase in clarity and shrillness…with initially discreet and restrained gestures, progressing to energetically orchestrated break dance movements, disco steps and head bangs, the researchers try to emulate the acoustic overstimulation.
The dance company Cie Drift convinces its audience with its curious ideas and enchantingly bizarre and strongly expressed characters…and takes its audience away to another, wondrous and sensuous world... The enthusiasm of the performers is contagious and one is forced into a fever of anticipation of what those sound experiments will generate.” Tages-Anzeiger, Zurich, Switzerland, 21st February 2003
„Cie Drift is one of the most striking phenomena in the free Zurich dance scene... Operating at the level of surrealistic Dada effects, the video sequences of Peter Schelling turn out to be full of inspired wit.” Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Switzerland, 21st February 2003