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©Annika Haas

Together with Sara Krieg I developed a live electro acoustic music performance relating to Strawinksky's piece. Dancing it was one approach (see below), discussions in the project group on further materials such as Pina Bausch's choreography or the Animé Dimension Bomb also brought up some ideas. Impro Sessions with Elzabi Rimington and her oboe on some leitmotifs of „Le Sacre du Printemps“ as well as playing that melody in slow-motion with an organ provided the main structure for the piece. Week by week a diagram of narrations, ideas and sound materials interwove with the concept of the final performances. In the end the AbletonLive's graphical interface added its characteristic to the structure of the piece.

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©Annika Haas

photograph: Simon Hirsbrunner

One of the most important phases was to provide music for a performance rehearsal with Lisa Stertz which was at the same time a shooting session for visuals which should be part of our final performance. She asked me to do a first sketch which she would listen to for the first time when doing her performance in a genuine touristic place: Potsdam's Park Sanssouci. Equipped with tape on her skin being removed during the performance, a shirt reading „Sacrificed“ and a camera at her leg she performed with our musical sketch while people in the park perceived that „silent“ dance surrounded by several cameras.

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©Annika Haas

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video: Lisa Stertz At „Stadt für eine Nacht“ Potsdam and a festive act of our faculty we first performed what had become RITE. Parts of the audience responded to that as if our performance had been a disturbing intervention. In a way that was right since we were asked as an „Orchestra“ to add some festive mood to the events. But the brutality and violence which we experienced with Strawinsky's piece was simply unavoidable. Thus we once organised a car with enormous bass loudspeakers opening the piece or amplified the oboe with a megaphone.

As part of the Playground Berlin Festival at the temporary cultural incubator MICA MOCA in Berlin Wedding RITE had its final debut on July 17th, 2011.

ElectroAcoustics: Annika Haas | Sara Krieg Oboe: Elzabi Rimington Performance: Lisa Stertz Visuals: Amy Lewis | Doreen Löwe (live) | Julia Jablonowski | Stefan Hennicke | Stefanie Fiebiger Black Box: Dominik Krabbe | Hans Kannewitz Directors: Anne Quirynen | Simon Vincent

Copyright

©Annika Haas

photograph: Gunnar Weber

While listening to Strawinsky's piece in our first meetings I always wanted to dance to that music. But I needed a special space and enough time. During the project week of our programme in Bröllin (May 22nd- 27th) I had the opportunity to do so in a church. Somehow that felt suitable since I consider its architecture as spacious and protected from the outer at the same time. The church in Bröllin has high ceilings and quite transparent windows, also acoustic wise. So I could also hear what is going on outside.

First: Adoration of the Earth: Introduction The Augurs of Spring: Dances of the Young Girls Ritual of Abduction Spring Rounds Games if the Two Rival Tribes Procession of the Oldest and Wisest One The Kiss of the Earth The Dancing Out of the Earth Second: The Exalted Sacrifice: Introduction Mystic Circle of the Young Girls The Naming and Honoring of the Chosen Evocation of the Ancestors Ritual Action of the Ancestors Sacrificial Dance (The Chosen One)

That is how Stravinsky and Nijinski illustrated their piece and choreography. But it is not written as a headline what we are listening to. I could make out two points: beginning and end and an in-between which I would describe as a fight with the music.

My notes:

In the beginning I find myself on a clearing, somehow peaceful, somehow in an insecure atmosphere. What will happen next? Who is joining me in that space? In the first session I imagine it to be a black cloud, circa one square metre wide, moving around on the ground. In the unfolding of the piece that little ghost grows to something which has no corpus, but which is an entity I can only gaze at. I start to recognize that I am fighting with that entity. I try to demonstrate my power. I stamp, I want to kick the altar, I beat myself like a warrior, I focus my gaze on the threatening entity. I do not want to be the sacrifice. I want to rescue myself not by fleeing from the situation but by defeating the booming power which mutates from the unfolding of the piece. But then there is a turning point which I cannot locate exactly. It is a point where my body recognizes that it is easier to devote itself to the music, to the process it delineates. At this point it seems to be a compromise to agree to be in the role of the sacrifice consciously. At least, you have to be strong to be sacrificed, you have to be willing and ready. You are chosen, maybe you are martyr.

Moving more and more monotonously: jumping, throwing my head and chest back and forward - I come to a comfortable, exhaustive feeling. It is only the permanently changing motives of the piece which interrupt me and anticipate something like trance. I throw my arms up and imagine a stream of energies which I want to direct to outpour over me. I now have the perspective that the rite of being sacrificed will lead me to something which lies beyond that ritual, to something positive. Still, it is unsure if that situation is peaceful or hostile, but actually that has become less important. The basses, the downbows- they suddenly are pushing me not in a violent way but encourage my pulse. In the end I gaze towards the entity and think: Take me, here I am, what are you waiting for?

break- next day- there was punch for lunch- anyway, let's go to church and dance!

In the beginning I know whom I will not meet today: the black cloud. I keep being distanced and try to dance to Stravinsky as if he would be the DJ in the club. Because of that I keep my body in vertical positions which have only a slight effect concurring trance feigns. Yesterday's rather ritual dancing created more euphoria. And of course I think more about what I am doing. The permanently changing motives permanently trigger the question: What's next? In which direction shall I move? In the ongoing development I leave the vertical and come back to the monotonous movements. I want to throw my head back and forward. Again, the music does not allow a climax of these movements to evolve. Looping these motives would be so suitable for dj set. But - In the end IT attacks me again. I feel as if my bodies is forced to move and influenced from different directions, as if forces coming from different directions hustle me. The distance I controlled in the beginning again is gone totally. And it is not the story behind that piece which for a second time brought me to that point, it is the music's force, aggression, ritual character. The latter let's me accept my role: the movement towards the end is too strong to fight against it and when you accept it light moments derive from that. My chest gets wide, my pulse energizes my body and in the end I feel overwhelmed, not released, but I feel that I've gone through a process and that I arrived in a different stage. It is not higher, but beyond something.