Présence(1961)
Bernd Alois Zimmermann »Presence« (1961) Ballet blanc en cinq scenes pour violon, cello and piano
In 2013, members of ID_Frankfurt were invited by the Ensemble Modern to develop a choreography for Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s composition Présence, entitled ballet blanc, as part of the Cresc…Biennale für Moderne Musik Frankfurt Rhein Main festival.
The score from 1961 itself gives an order for the choreography. Regarding the scenic aspect, it consists solely of enigmatic instructions: the naming of four figures (speaker, Molly Bloom, Don Quichotte and Ubu Roi) – assigned to both dancers and instruments – and word emblems by Paul Portner. The ballet announced in its title remains an unexplained enigma, with which Zimmermann wanted to challenge a new, as yet non-existent form of dance in 1961. In 1968, John Cranko staged Présence for the first time.
The choreography by Florian Ackermann, Norbert Pape, Friederike Thielmann and Kristina Veit, which was shown for the first time in 2013 as part of Cresc…Biennale für Moderne Musik Frankfurt Rhein Main at the Staatstheater Darmstadt, aims to give visibility to the multi-layered levels of the score. The central element here is a large number of word boards, with the help of which the dancers literally place the score in the room.
Ensemble Modern
Violine: Rafal Zambrzycki-Payne
Violoncello: Michael M. Kasper
Klavier: Hermann Kretzschmar
Performance: Andrés García Martínez • Jungyun Bae • Kristina Veit
Choreography/Concept: Friederike Thielmann, Kristina Veit, Florian Ackermann, Norbert Pape
A production of the Ensemble Modern in cooperation with ID_Frankfurt, produced as part of the Festival Cresc…Biennale für Moderne Musik 2013. Developed in Z.Center for rehearsals and research and funded by the city of Frankfurt and the Künstlerhaus Mousonturm and the Frankfurt LAB as part of the ROUGH CUTS focus