Virtuosity
The beautiful space of Berlin Philarmonie, Kammermusiksaal, hosted a night of performances including the works of Saâdane Afif, Bethan Huws, Christoph Keller, Annika Larsson, Klara Lidén, Olaf Nicolai (feat. Elliot Sharp), Tracey Rose, Tino Sehgal in collaboration with Kammerensemble für Neue Musik Berlin, Truike Van Der Poel and Chor der Kulturen der Welt. This night, 30.04.2013, was introduced as a concert “on skill and disruption, strength and nonchalance, morale and cheating.”
To be honest, Tino Sehgal’s work was not affective compared to his previous works. That is the challenge of a successful artist: the expectation of the spectator to be satisfied with the work − I use the word success despite knowing the fact that the notion of it is a question mark in itself. When one sees the names in the press release, s/he envisages potential discoveries. Although Truike Van der Poel’s voice intervention at the ticket office and Olaf Nicolai’s pieces attracted the spectator, generally nothing differed from what we see in almost every performance.
The moment that I was asking the question “why?” , I encountered the work of Bethan Huws voiced by Chor der Kulturen der Welt. Bethan Huws is an artist who deals with texts reminiscent of the art&language movement. Her funny piece richened by watermelons or phonetic games, called Phil Harmonica, put smile on the faces as well as using the text in a different manner.
I don’t know you but I always feel the pressure to stay till the end with the long pieces. In spite of observing nothing really special, I didn’t feel that whilst enjoying Virtuosity.
