CONCERTO UNDER WATERLILIES (2016/18)
Witness the inner drama, treasures of Monet’s waterlilies room, free fearless speech, a thinker’s frozen heart, a beach, a list of everyone who must go to psychoanalysis and fast.
This is the second part of production series, in which interprets classical works by Russian composers, as autopsies. ›Concerto under Waterlilies‹ is both an autonomous sequel and an autopsy of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s 2nd piano concerto. Rachmaninoff composed the piece in the aftermath of a creative crisis marked by bouts of depression and he dedicated it to his neurologist, Nikolai Dahl. The work’s enduring popularity is attributable above all to the mood of melodic melancholy it conveys. The performance interprets the composition as an investigation of veracity, subjectivity and transparency. The setting transports the performers into a situation in which madness and romanticism converge. The contemporary drama that unfolds under Monet’s Water Lilies draws the audience into an equally absurd and cynical fiction hovering between romanticism and excess.
CREDITS:
Choreography: Elina Pirinen
Text: Heidi Väätänen
On stage: Aleksi Holkko, Suvi Kemppainen, Elina Pirinen + ”psychoanalists” Heidi Väätänen, Pauli Riikonen and Niko Hallikainen
Lighting design in 2018: Mateus Manninen
Lighting and space design in 2016: Jani-Matti Salo & Heikki Paasonen
Sound design: Pauli Riikonen
Mentor: Niko Hallikainen
Costume: Kaisa Kemikoski, Elina Pirinen, Heidi Väätänen
Music: Sergei Rachmaninow: Piano concerto no. 2, C minor op. 18, Elina Pirinen, Pauli Riikonen: Pianoconcerto that Rachmaninoff did not compose
Premiere: 30th of September 2016 Kiasma Theatre of Kiasma Museum of Contempirary Art, new version in Pact Zollverein Essen 2018
Production: Kiasma-teatteri (Helsinki), Elina Pirinen & Heidi Väätänen
Support: Kone Foundation, The Arts Promotion Centre Finland, Finnish Cultural Foundation, [DNA] Departures and Arrivals funded by the Creative Europe Program of the European Commission
Images: Petri Virtanen
Complete performance documentation on request.