THE URBAN TALE of a HIPPO
Austrian premiere
THE URBAN TALE of a HIPPO
Panayiotis Kokoras (US/GR), Andrius Katinas (LT/FI), Nanni Vapaavuori (FI), Morta Nakaitė (LT), Synaesthesis (LT), Operomanija (LT)
Performance in an immersive sound fog space
It appears in a landscape of mist, light, natural elements, sound and movement: Hippo, Anima, totem of consciousness and diversity. In this music performance, a multi-sensory space is created in which the audience is thrown back on their own heightened senses. Will the boundaries between nature and city, animal and human, past and future even blur in the end?
THE URBAN TALE of a HIPPO is a piece of music theatre that explores the landscape of the present. It reflects on the identity of humans and animals. The venue serves not only as a stage, but also as a musical instrument in which the sounds expand, transform, grow and envelop the audience.
Navigating through the fog, the participants can not only explore the spatial landscape, but also immerse themselves in it and hide from the gaze of others. Like hunters relying on their focussed senses, they wander around the room.
The soundscape lulls the audience into the blurred realities between nature and city, morphing live instruments with electronics. The piece becomes a map of fading visions of the past and anticipated silhouettes of the future... and finally the Hippo itself appears...
"Gilles Deleuze (philosopher) and Félix Guattari (psychoanalyst) distinguish three types of animal: The Oedipal animal, the Jungian animal or 'archetype' and the demonic animal. Each of the movements in the play refers to one of these animal types and is based on the criteria: anti-hierarchical, multidirectionally growing, without centre or periphery, without beginning, middle or end and without a dominant point of view."
- Panayiotis Kokoras
Duration: 50 min.
Note: Stage lighting and a drone will be used during the performance. There is no seating available at the event. If required (e.g. physical impairment) please contact ticket@mttw.at turn.
Performances & tickets
prices: Category 2
Full price € 22 | Reduced: € 12 [Available in the NEBEL combination ticket]
WUK Saal
Währinger Str. 59, 1090 Vienna
Music: Panayiotis Kokoras
Action: Andrius Katinas
Light: Nanni Vapaavuori
Costumes: Morta Nakaitė
Performance: Contemporary music ensemble Synaesthesis: Monika Kiknadzė (viola), Arnas Kmieliauskas (cello), Vytenis Gurstis (flute), Artūras Kažimėkas (clarinet), Arminas Bižys (saxophone), Marta Finkelštein (piano), Domantas Kancleris (drone)
Producer: Operomanija
Co-producing partner: Synaesthesis
Supported by: Lithuanian Council for Culture, Vilnius City Municipality, Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania
A production by Operomanija.
PANAYIOTIS KOKORAS is an American Greek composer and computer music innovator. Kokoras’s sound compositions use timbre as the main element of form. His concept of “holophony” describes his goal that each independent sound (φωνή), contributes equally into the synthesis of the total (ὅλος). In both instrumental and electroacoustic writing, his music calls upon a “virtuosity of sound,” emphasizing the precise production of variable sound possibilities and the correct distinction between one timbre and another to convey the musical ideas and structure of the piece. His compositional output is also informed by musical research in Music Information Retrieval compositional strategies, extended techniques, tactile sound, augmented reality, robotics, spatial sound, synesthesia. He is founding member of the Hellenic Electroacoustic Music Composers Association (HELMCA) and from 2004 to 2012 he was board member and president.
ANDRIUS KATINAS is a Lithuanian dance artist based in Finland. He studied theatre and dance arts at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre and at the Theatre Academy of Finland. Since 1999 he has been actively working as a performer and a choreographer both in Finland and Lithuania. His main focus is on various forms of collaboration and the continuous search for new approaches and perspectives in dance creation. Andrius is currently Head of the Department of Dance and Movement at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre.
NANNI VAPAAVUORI is a Finnish lighting designer with a background in interior design. Her artistic work includes contemporary dance, contemporary music, performance art, new circus and installations in fourteen countries in Europe, Asia and Africa. In her practice as a lighting designer, Nanni combines installation and performing arts in relation to space. Her approach to lighting design is both concrete and tactile, working in direct collaboration with the materials. Nanni invites the surrounding space to participate in the artistic practice of creation. She strives for collaboration between different artistic disciplines and is always actively involved in bringing her works into other spaces. Nanni Vapaavuori is currently working on her artistic doctoral thesis on the material dimensions of light at the Performing Arts Research Centre of the Helsinki University of the Arts.
MORTA NAKAITĖ is a Vilnius based conceptual women’s wear designer who brings pure, poetic and silent feeling to her work. Calm, soft, sculptural silhouettes are paired with an untraditional search of texture in an attempt to attain a feeling of softness, clear forms that aspire a timeless quality. Her work may seem visionary at a first glance but if you look at it carefully, they are infused with fragments of Vilnius, nostalgic memories and echoes from the past. She also works as a costume designer for theatre and performing arts, which influences the development of her artistic narrative.
The contemporary music ensemble “SYNAESTHESIS”, established in Vilnius in 2013, has built a reputation as a daring ensemble that is uncompromisingly dedicated to new music. Having been awarded the Ernst von Siemens Foundation Ensemble Prize in 2020, “Synaesthesis” continues to widen its reach as a performing entity of considerable renown.
The team of musicians has taken up the mission of introducing works of experimental Lithuanian and foreign composers to audiences around the world. The ensemble’s vision extends beyond the sound into space, light, movement, and narrative – any medium that allows for professionally performed music to become a multidimensional experience and blur the lines between genres.
