beat silence beat

Rhythm – both acoustic and visual – permeates every aspect of the new piece by Anna Konjetzky & Co. Even the title “beat silence beat” sets the tempo – and sets the tone. Beat: the rhythm, the pulse, the pounding; a physical movement of defiance and resistance, an act of protest and emotion. But also: a metronome, a grounding, a physical anchoring in the here and now. Silence, on the other hand: stillness, a pause, the interval between beats, the breath between two words, the wait for the start, the calm before the storm, and also the hidden and the unsaid. Two poles that cannot exist without one another and yet seem to stand in irreconcilable opposition.

“beat silence beat” weaves these opposites into a powerful and fluid unity. It is not always the loudest stomp that creates the biggest waves. The movement of the foot towards the ground may be the start of a leap, of taking off. But perhaps it collapses into the ground and fizzles out without leaving a mark. And perhaps the foot follows the rhythm and persists, step by step.

Using trigger pads, “beat silence beat” intertwines movement, sound and the body: it is the dancers themselves who, through their movements, control sounds, melodies, texts and even the lighting. A composition, a concert by Anna Konjetzky and Sergej Maingardt featuring live triggers, sound, voices, feet and recorded material: Feet sing, words begin to dance, leaps speak and six bodies resonate.

“What particularly interests me in this production is the connection between cause and effect, the movement from the inside out. For at present, it seems to me that as a society we are mostly gasping to keep up with the rhythm. We groove helplessly somewhere between everyday stimuli and the struggle to find an appropriate response to them.” – Anna Konjetzky

With “beat silence beat”, Anna Konjetzky continues her exploration of the dance-concert format, which she previously experimented with in “songs of absence” and her youth piece “sound on!”. And as in those two pieces, the body is also a central element in the production of sound in her current work.