Sound of no music

Music, spaced with silence and dance come together in this intense, experimental performance

When a contemporary choreographer from Mumbai collaborates with a sound artiste from Japan, one can only expect an intense performance. "It is, but it is also a quiet performance—not in terms of sound but the velocity of it. There is a shared wavelength between sound artiste Mitsuaki Matsumoto and me. His instrument and music are an extension of his body. We have worked previously in someone else's piece, but this is ours. Both of us are improvisers and that makes it fun to work with each other," says choreographer Sujay Saple.

The unique concert-performance is, in fact a choreographed sonic experience that involves the Matsumoto the musician and Mallika Singh, the performer, present in front of a small number of spectators placed in intimate proximity to the artistes and to each other. The dramaturgy is by Poorna Swami. "This is a concert of sound, and of movement has been designed to enable a strong, deep exploration of absence and loss, residues and recollection, and the intangible moments that get left behind in the process.

Here, music is not always the driving force, and the dancing body is not always the centrepiece and the idea is to invert the notion of a concert—inviting the listener to also see, and the spectator to also listen. As a part of the choreography, sometimes you can only see Matsumoto's arm, playing an instrument and the sound produced is the result of this choreography and not the other way round. The haunting terrain of carefully fragmented silences, spasms of sound, darknesses, and absences come together to put the audience in an elevated sensory space, proposing that the quiet and unseen happenings might be the only ones that last," says Saple.

When: October 4 to 13; Thursdays and Fridays 9 PM and Saturdays and Sundays 6 PM and 9 PM
Where: G5A Foundation for Contemporary Culture, Laxmi Mills Estate, Shakti Mills Lane, Mahalaxmi
Entry: Rs 500 onwards
Call: 8879208475

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