MEGALOPOLIS

Year & Context

2001

Co-production with the Working Group “Media Stage NRW” / ICEM, Folkwang University Essen

About the Production

The city is not the streets, the parks, the buildings. So it's not the people either. It's the relations. It's living together, it's cooperation. That's it.

— Mauricio Ribeiro da Silva

“MEGALOPOLIS – Abgesänge auf die großen Städte” (Songs of Farewell to the Great Cities) was our creation for 2001: 10 authors from the 10 largest cities in the world each wrote a lyrical text on the development of their city into a megalopolis (cities with over 10 million inhabitants). These 10 texts – written in their respective native languages – served as libretti for musical compositions. The music was created as “spoken word electronic”: direct voice and electronic processing combined into song compositions, each accompanied by a soundscape from the city in question.

For the first time since “Figure and Sound in Space” (1993), the approach of gesture-controlled sound transformation was revisited: using a camera-based tracking system, the performers' body and spatial movements were translated into control data for the electronic transformation of their voices. The live-generated music formed the basis of 10 dances, choreographed by guest choreographer Carlos Cortizo – the first uncabled dance-music interaction in the history of Theater der Klänge, an approach developed further in subsequent productions.

MEGALOPOLIS was the starting point for the intermedial follow-up productions “Modul|a|t|o|r”, “HOEReographien”, “SUITE intermediale”, “Vanitas”, “Coda” and “Das Lackballett” and most recently “Mensch und Kunstfigur im Kugeltheater”.

Supported by: Folkwang University Essen · Ministry of Schools, Science and Research NRW · Ministry of Urban Development, Culture and Sport NRW · Foundation Art and Culture of the State of NRW · Kulturamt der Landeshauptstadt Düsseldorf · Fonds Darstellende Künste e.V. · Stiftung van Meeteren