LAUBA – people and art house will welcome two artists, saxophonist Lovro Merčep and dancer and choreographer Petra Hrašćanec, to its impressive hall for a performance in which sound and movement intertwine in a special way. You may know Lovro Merčep as a regular in the MBZ’s programs, as well as the winner of many awards, performer in numerous ensembles, promotor of contemporary Croatian music and teacher at the Elly Bašić Music School, whereas Petra Hrašćanec is, among others, founder and artistic director of the 21:21 organization and Associate Professor in the Department of Dance of the Academy of Dramatic Arts, the University of Zagreb. As this performer and choreographer will point out, this is a unique performance in which dance is not a reaction to music but an integral part of it. This is therefore a sort of a micro-musical-stage piece as evidenced by the structure of the score itself or the title of the individual compositions on the program, but is fully formed in terms of their contextualization, i.e. their subsequent conceptualization.
The presentation will feature two first performances of well-known regional composers, Sanda Majurec and David Mastikosa, and compositions by great composers Luciano Berio and Pierre Boulez (a piece dedicated to Berio). Majurec and Mastikosa share views on the forms and the relationships within a piece of music, which acquire almost physical qualities, for example in the opus of Sanda Majurec, as noted by composer and musicologist Tomislav Oliver. Majurec’s work implies a carefully thought-out musical dramaturgy, while Mastikosa, literally, skillfully writes for theater and film—together announcing a strong foundation for the dramaturgical shaping of the stage performance of Merčep and Hrašćanec. Boulez’s composition, on the other hand, refers entirely to the “double shadow” segment from Paul Claudel’s play, whereas in his virtuoso piece Berio deliberately oscillates between polyphonic and harmonic modes of presentation and two intonation frameworks. Although there are only two performers, the tone, body and power of the interpretation will provoke the huge performance space and attempt to embody (and “ensound”) the mentioned dual structures and physical dramaturgical lines.
Petra Hrašćanec about the performance:
"Every live performance involves a face-to-face. Different media and performers, as well as the audience, share something—a body that sees—and quite often "narrates". At our meeting, we insisted on a journey through different compositions within a specific dramaturgy and the technology of movement, so that the instruments meet and build associations. The breath as the basis for both performance media is transformed into forms that we recognize, forms that explore, watch, live. But they live as long as the eye of the viewer nurtures them. We may have had the same question for everybody: what sort of contact with nature, with the technology do we have, how do we stand next to each other, what do we find in the air and what in the breath."
Lovro Merčep, saxophone
Petra Hrašćanec, choreography and performance
David Mastikosa, Touch*, for alto saxophone and dance
Pierre Boulez, Dialogue de l’ombre double, for saxophones and electronics
Luciano Berio, Sequenza VIIb, for saxophone solo
Sanda Majurec, La ultima tanda*, for saxophone
*first performance – commissioned by the 32nd MBZ-HDS