​​PROJECT DESCRIPTION

A shared experience between artists and audience

Gunawan and De Jong prioritize the core values secured in the music of Simeon ten Holt. The physical experience of his music became his starting point. After a period of musical abstraction Ten Holt wanted to feel again! The addition of dancers to the music of Canto Ostinato is therefore a choice that fits like a glove.

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A driving force

First of all, working with live music will give enormous energy to the dancers, who are often used to working with digital recordings. Canto Ostinato is not interchangeable. Especially when performed live, the music is the driving force for the dancers and vice versa,' says De Jong.

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​​Gunawan and De Jong want to emphasize the openness and spaciousness that Ten Holt brought to the composition. Just as the musicians can agree on certain signs with each other, so can the dancers. Musicians and dancers can also influence each other. Sometimes the music is leading, at other times the dancers take the initiative. This co-responsibility between musicians and dancers is but one example of an analogy with the functioning of a gamelan orchestra. ​

Ten Holt also asks an open attitude from his audience. He does not see his audience as passive listeners, but invites them to freely associate while absorbing the music. His music is ment to move you, in many ways.

Naturally, our choice for locations will also resonate this feeling of spaciousness.

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The gamelan ensemble

Ideally, Gunawan makes an arrangement for seventeen players, so that the stratification and beauty of a gamelan ensemble - ranging from the deepest gongs to the highest pitch of the smaller metallophones - will be given justice. Gunawan will bring about half of the musicians of his own ensemble Kyai Fatahillah from Bandung, Indonesia. They will be supplemented by professional musicians from the Netherlands. ​​​​​

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​​Music that starts with the body

Ten Holt's comment about his composition process - 'You start with your body' - appeals to De Jong as a choreographer. During the initial research with the dancers in the studio, she wants to take the music as a starting point and see how it triggers their bodies - their internal movement. This will be different for each dancer. From there we will look to what unites them.

 

​​Five?

Audience members as well as performers of Canto Ostinato often refer to the composition as being a 'cosmic' experience. The repeating, ever slightly shifting patterns are reminiscent of life itself, in which everything is constantly moving in cycles. The musical time signature of Canto Ostinato can be divided into two times five, one line going up and one going down, like a question and answer pinciple. In physics the pentagon figure (a form with five angles of the same length) cannot repeat itself in an endless tile pattern, as can triangles, squares and hexagons. This makes the number '5' a sacred number in many cultures. Yet Ten Holt uses this number to create his repetitive patterns. Another example: we are all familiar with the 5-element theory which assumes that everything that lives is made up of water, wood, fire, earth and metal. They are symbols for life, for nature. The number '5' has inspired many artists and scientists alike, for example M.C. Escher and Gerard Caris. Reason enough for De Jong to work with five dancers.

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​A landscape of light

In the multidisciplinary performances of AFK Away From Keyboard (the initiative of Aafke de Jong), image and environment play a major role. The choice of art forms stems from a certain necessity. They are all on equal footing. For the stage image (depending on the possibilities of the location in question) the artists want to construct the idea that during the performance we are in a time acceleration or a time deceleration. Therefore, the light design will be an important aspect of the performance. This, together with the movements, the costumes and the repetitive patterns of the music, contribute to the idea that we all together participate in the same universal circular movement.  ​​