Vexations - danceperformance

Vienna, Austria

Photo © Laurent Ziegler

Architects: feld72 Architects

Location: Vienna, Austria
Year: 2009

Based on the composition for piano of the eccentric musician an elaborate room installation was developed. The installation provides unique sound experience. The audience immerse in extraordinary interaction between space, time and repetition. The visitor which is part of the installation is invited to play with the operation instructions and experience their own perception layers. The Saties suggestion to repeat the composition 840 times and play it in a slow tempo to experience meditative nature of the music is a great physical and mental challenge for the pianists. Kerstin Kussmaul, Jan Burkardt and the Satie expert Stephen Whittigton are sharing that task. The audience gets operation instructions before entering the room, sound and performance installation to deal playfully with perception layers. In any case by entering the big room installation the visitor becomes recipient and protagonist at the same time. Due to the tempo of the musical procedure the performance lasts about 21 hours.