Dancers do stretching exercises on the stage, the space on it is limited because the stage set from the last show is still about to lockdown. But the mood at the press presentation in the Wintergarten Varieté house is downright euphoric: After all, it’s a real event, on site, with people and a stage. There are even sandwiches and coffee, like in the old days.
Above all, however, this preview promises a future beyond pandemic-related restrictions. “Flying Bach”, a collaboration between the Varieté and the Berlin breakdance troupe Flying Steps and the pianist Christoph Hagel, is due to start on September 28th. (Tickets from 40.50 euros can already be pre-ordered) Piano and vaudeville, how does that fit together?
Classical music is often dance music
There are people who say that the body has only really found its way into music with electronic technology: While the diaphragm starts to vibrate as soon as you step into the club and every beat is like a punch in the pit of the stomach, the audience sits in a classical concert just there and process the impressions intellectually.
The classical concert business also contributes to the fact that even lovers: when listening to Johann Sebastian Bach’s “Well-Tempered Clavier”, the term head music comes to mind.
After all, in this collection of preludes and fugues, the composer systematically explored the new possibilities of polyphony and expressly intended them for the “musical youth eager to learn”. Hagel presents precisely this collection on piano and harpsichord, occasionally expanded to include electronic sounds.
Pulse instead of Beat
And when the Flying Steps to the prelude in E major start with fast “footwork” and spectacular “power moves”, they not only commit an interesting break in style, but also make the baroque pulse, which is subtle compared to the bass-heavy beat, tangible that we are with hardly notice today’s listening habits.
Court music, if it was not sacred, was after all always based on the common dances. “We want young people to learn something about classical music,” says choreographer Vartan Bassil, “and at the same time that the audience far from hip-hop perceive breakdance as an art rather than just a sport”.
The opposites meet with a sometimes surprising harmony. For example, when one of the dancers to the harpsichord sound in the C minor prelude during a “headspin”, i.e. the pirouette on the head, reminds one of a baroque music box with a rotating porcelain doll – and thus forgets the initial skepticism about the concept leaves.
