Fast-flowing traffic, flashing lights and a steady stream of people. Standstill. Every city has its own rhythm. Yui Kawaguchi and Aki Takase mirror these rhythms like microcosms under a magnifying glass and create a new utopian city in their interplay of choreography, composition and improvisation – The City in the Piano (Die Stadt im Klavier). It has been five years since the dancer asked the jazz pianist to appear on stage for the first time. Since then, they have continued to weave their passionate dialogue in new contexts. After the great success of Chaconne (2011), the duo now present Cadenza, their second world premiere in Berlin’s Sophiensaele.
The concert piano is the central tool of the evening’s performance. Aki Takase’s virtuoso mastery of the entire body of this instrument separates it acoustically into its individual components, and creates links between intertwined harmonies, isolated tones and manipulated timbres. Yui Kawaguchi delves into these sound spheres and forms new structures and physical spaces through dance. A dialogue begins between two strong personalities and two expressive art forms.
In the fifth part of their series “The City in the Piano”, the Berlin-based Japanese artists take inspiration from the western cadenza. The dynamic interplay of choreography, composition and improvisation is turned into an abstract allegory for our urban existence, which can be understood as both a system of rules and a violation of rules. This ambivalence is also reflected on stage when the ball, that most unstable of objects, interferes in events and unexpectedly becomes entangled in a chain reaction…