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A coproduction with Rote Farbik Zürich
On Stage: Béatrice Jaccard, Massimo Bertinelli, François Gendre
Idea: Massimo Bertinelli, Francois 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: Beatrice Rossi
The duration of the play is 55 minutes without intermission.
“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. It is an offbeat piece predicated on how science might investigate some of life’s more absurd scientific questions. For example, how can the inaudible be made audible? How does a fly scream when it bumps into a burning-hot light bulb? 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.
... 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, 16th April, 2006
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, then one finds oneself engulfed in the world of the Drift Dance Company…emphatically shrill and imaginative…
Kronenzeitung, Austria, 19th July, 2005
What is science but the peering into the darkness and the discovery of something new? As science attempts to uncover physical truths, Drift endeavours to illuminate for us the unknown possibilities of dance and theatre onstage. This edgy group experiments with a hybrid creation of movement, theatre, visual effects, and human emotions. Drift is still carving out a place for itself within European dance theatre landscape, but it is one of the most booked dance theatre companies in Switzerland.
Theatreforum – Intern. Theatre Journal, 2002
The Swiss Dance Company Drift is an ensemble that examines subtly and humorously the absurdities of everyday life. The artistic directors, Béatrice Jaccard and Peter Schelling have worked together since 1987. They were joined in 1992 by Massimo Bertinelli. In 1998 they formed ‘Compagnie Drift’. The Zürich based Dance Company has become one of the most important and successful in Switzerland. They are equally successful on the international scene, having presented their work in 28 countries. Béatrice Jaccard and Peter Schelling/ Compagnie Drift have received the Suisse Price for Dance and Choreography 2007 for their complete works. In presenting their contemporary dance theatre “Drift” set out to exhibit profound surrealism with a seemingly effortless ease. The resultant effect can be as unexpected as it is at the same time absurd and disturbing. Every simple pose, every simple gesture, no less than the work as a whole, provides a basis for constant movement and have become the instrument for the specific and very personal signature of the Company.
Simplification of the means, paucity of expenditure remain since the beginning important elements of the artistic direction, often as counterpoint to entangled, frightening and decomposing eruptions. Lightness, playfulness mingles with bewilderment. Figures appear not in coherent roles but rather represent symbols of different possibilities of life with which artists experiment in order to identify with them or to transform them…
The company‘s precision of movement creates dreamlike, non sequitur visual content that poses open questions, relying on the spectators to complete the circuit, to give form and assign meaning to what they are seeing.
www.drift.ch; [email protected]
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This performance has been possible with the kind support of
Pro Helvetia – Swiss Arts Council
Fachstelle Kultur Kanton Zürich
Kulturförderung der Stadt Zürich
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