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Gilgamesh
Gilgamesh is a 70 minute work for puppeteer/actor,
violinist/actor, and
electronic music. The creative team includes: Douglas Geers,
composier and performer of live electronics, Mirjam
Neidhart, director, Anne Lorenz, artist and designer of stage objects
and costumes, assisted by Karin Bühler, Philipp Siegel, actor,
Maja Cerar, violinist, and Karin Bühler, video. The premiere
in
2003, which took place at the Theater an der Sihl in Zürich,
Switzerland, was made possible by the Hochschule der
Künste,
Zürich, Swityerland, under the directorship of Daniel Fueter:
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From the program notes of the
premiere:
Gilgamesh,
the world's oldest known written story, tells the dramatic tale of one
man's arrogance, crisis, and quest for immortality.
As its events
unfold, King Gilgamesh dares to defy the will of the gods again and
again, only to find his victory answered by the sting of their wrath.
Moreover, the gods themselves spark additional unexpected plot twists
as they argue, lust, and become jealous of both each other and the
mortals they govern, fueling a fierce struggle for love, glorification,
and ultimate power.
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Combining elements
from puppet theater, installation art, chamber
music, and ballet, this unique telling of the Gilgamesh
story heats up the inherent tensions of the plot by presenting it as an
improvised game of the gods. The
three players in this game are a
violinist, computer musician, and actor/puppeteer; and their only
"speech" is music. Beginning with a
seemingly static installation, the
performers breathe life into the objects with music and motion and
immerse themselves in the epic. The characters' evolving relationships
oscillate between cooperation and revenge, bringing about both
symbiosis as well as destruction. It is sometimes purposely made
unclear who is 'animating' whom, and occasionally even the music, from
which all of the action and emotions arise, completely breaks down.
The music of Gilgamesh
develops as a dynamic concerto-like dialogue between a virtuosic solo
violin and a vibrant "orchestra" of electronic music. The
violin's sound is constantly sent via microphone into a
laptop computer played by Douglas Geers, who directs it to analyze and
modify the violin sound, and "conducts" its synthesized musical
reactions to Maja Cerar's performance.
Moving beyond the traditional concerto concept, the violinist is also
an actor, embodying her characters' thoughts and emotions while
dancing, running, and even crawling onstage, both personifying
characters and operating puppets. Meanwhile Philip Siegel, the
puppeteer/actor, performs with equal virtuosity, portraying all the
other characters of the story--sometimes several
simultaneously.
Visually, strong design concepts imbue Gilgamesh
with a stunning clean style, thanks to the creations of Anne
Lorenz (assisted by Karin Bühler), which are
installation objects as well as puppets. These include life size
characters that can stand by themselves or be worn as costumes, and
other, seemingly mundane objects that become unexpectedly alive in the
actors' hands.
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