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Harawi – la danse des etoiles

(Harawi – Songs of Love and Death)

Production: egli_items
Concept, choreography: Philipp Egli
Music: Oliver Messiaén
Sopran: Eva Nievergelt
Klavier: Petra Ronner
Tanz: Philipp Egli
Production Management: ACTuUM, Thomas Pérronet
Premiere: 29.09.2018, Kulturhaus Helferei, Zürich

The one-hour cycle HARAWI Songs of Love and Death is the first part of the Tristan Trilogy, which was written between 1945 and 1949. Messiaen set his own symbolistic and onomatopoetic texts to music by means of flattering beautiful sound, birdsong, counterpoint, pounding pulses and unruly rhythms. Over 12 songs he spans a wide arc between abysmal ritual power and expansively exploding transcendence. The movement part extends the duo to a trio, breaks open the enclosure of a song evening and creates open space for the size of this composition: temporally and spatially extended, HARAWI fills all dimensions of the neo-Gothic chapel with movement, sound and silence.