Silence is the absence of sound or movement, according to the Van Dale. In Silenzio, the new performance by Andrea Leine and Harijono Roebana, a wide spectrum of sounds, rhythms and melodies can be heard and follows one movement impulse after another, with sometimes, yet, a moment of stillness, as well as the often restless playing of the cellist Ketevan Roinishvili and accordionist Renée Bekkers comes to rest in the comforting fragments from Josquin’s ‘Mille Regretz’. Then there is time for a silent embrace.
Modern, Western man has become unaccustomed to silence. Silence has become threatening, deafening at times. And just as black has absorbed all colors, Silenzio’s ‘silence’ carries all sounds and movements: in addition to the melodious ‘Mille Regretz’ and, at times, the tongue-clacking and hissing of the dancers, also the mystical atmosphere of Arvo Pärt in a transcript for cello and accordion of Fratres, the cello violence of George Crumbs Sonata for Solo Cello (Toccata) and the clusters and sound fields, the trembling and sighing of the diatonic button in compositions by Sofia Gubaidulina.
In response to this, the choreography is alternately playful or feverish, always with those typical dead straight horizontally or vertically outstretched arms with which the dancers, as it were, determine their place in space and in relation to each other. Sometimes very concretely, when they line up at 90-degree angles to each other. But as strict as those arms are, the feet bounce back and forth so frivolously, sometimes flat across the room, then jumping up straight again.
Beautiful are the solos of Aika Goto, who swings her arms razor sharp like the pendulum of a clock. As a chorus, she repeats the fragment between the constantly changing formations. The sequence of these is not always logical. Then the eyes move to the backstage, where Emma Bogerd crosses the floor in ultra slow motion. In her white suit she advances, step by step, almost imperceptibly but steadily, as time goes on. In silence.