...or "how emptiness could be so active". This work for solo flute and dancer works with the limits of perception: very narrow register in microtonal steps, extreme dynamic levels in the pianissimo, silence as a constitutive musical material. Sound builds a discontinuous line with very few elements. Dance creates a discontinuous space in the darkness, coming into sight here and there from the obscurity as a sound comes out from silence. (text by Wobbe van der Meulen)

Collaboration: Wobbe van der Meulen (flute)

Wobbe van der Meulen - flute. Studied from 1986 to 1992 flute, both classical and jazz, at the Conservatory of Groningen. From 2000-2004 he finished the course Contemporary Music Through Non-Western Techniques at the Conservatory of Amsterdam. Interested in the sonoric possibilities of flute, Wobbe specialized in extended techniques. His most recent musical project was Batscapez (2005), a location project in which improvised music was combined with live sounds of bats. These sounds were made audible by a so called bat detector. The of the use of bat territory with it's inaudible sounds in a musical landscape, together with a theatrical use of light resulted in a special kind of performance bordering between nature experience and night music. (www.batscapez.nl).

After Batscapez he shifted his focus to visual arts, going furter into exploring spatial perception and topography by making installations; architectural 3D constructions, and experimenting with photographing 3D laser writings in different environments.

Collaboration: Ines Birkhan (dance)

Ines Birkhan, born in Vienna, living in Berlin since 2005, studied fine arts and sculpture at the Academy of Applied Arts in Vienna, then dance and choreography at the SNDO (School for New Dance Development) in Amsterdam. Since then she continuously works on her own performances and film/video, such as Alpiner Exorzismus (2003/2004), Butterflies, Sex and Hypochondria (2005/2007), Mythen für der Zukunft (2005/2006), den kreisrunden Todengwalzer tanzen (2006/2007). She danced a. o. with Barbara Kraus, Kurt Koegel, Benoit Lachambre, Frans Poelstra, Michael Schumacher, Robert Steijn, Frank van den Ven, Lito Walkey... Since 2004 she is co-director of the performing arts company Real Dance Super Sentai. In the last years she also involved in writing - her first book being published in March 2007 by Peter Lang Verlag, Vienna.

The dance

Even if the music is "completely written", I like to think in this piece like an open counterpoint where the movement line is open and could be reinterpreted constantly.

"Música invisible" has been choreographed twice under different ideas. In my view, two perspectives of the same thing.

1. Micro-variation

It was an intense research time in the summer of 2003 in Amsterdam, when together with the dancer Ines Birkhan and the flutist Wobbe van de Meulder, we worked in this concept. Ines engraved the idea of "active emptiness" in the frame of a naked body, where the dancer just moves imperceptibly during the time span of the piece, based on some Butoh theatre experiences. It is interesting to see how the perception gradually grows and what in the first moment seems to be "the same" turns out to be very multifaceted in a wider scale. This angle aims at changing the focus to a   "hyper minimal activity" in an apparently motionless scene .

More info about this version

2. Counterpoint in the twilight zone

In a different version, played in Buenos Aires in December 2007 under the initiative of the flutist Adriana Montorfano, together with the dancer Vanina García and the choreographer Mónica Carral. The dancer is creating a discontinuous space in the darkness, coming into sight here and there from the dark as a sound comes out from silence. The limits of perceptions are related to the visible and invisible, the piece being played almost in the stillness of the dark.

More info about this version

Música invisible para flauta y bailarina

Invisible music for flute and dancer (2003)