​Repl(a)ying Bach

Christoph Stradner, the cellist of the Altenberg Trio and the first solo cellist of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, approaches Johann Sebastian Bach's cello suites with the intention of constantly finding new approaches to the abundance of different, sometimes contradictory levels. The key, pitch, tempo, and harmonic function of the tones create a sense of the body, elemental feelings, human depths, and heights, musically interpreting and balancing the relationship of extremes between the force of nature, humanity, and the transcendent.   

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The choreography takes up the musical body feeling, ideas, imaginaries, and experiences of the musician Christoph Stradner and interweaves them with gestures and movements that were modeled on a silhouette score by the Austrian-Argentinean „Ausdruckstänzerin“ Isolde Klietmann. 

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For example, Christoph Stradner interprets the musical movements of the Prelude of the 4th Suite BWV 1010 in the E-flat major as trees in the process of falling, including the counter-movement of the branches also swinging upwards; many counter-directions are thus integrated into the downward falling movement - an extremely exciting motoric transformation for the dancer Marcela López Morales. The musical-dance interpretation combines the different narratives in the individual suite movements with the biographical experiences of the two performers.