Over a year in the making, this critically acclaimed dance spectacle celebrates the language of our city with a limited engagement. Before the audience enters the hall, recorded conversations with Philadelphians sets the backdrop as dancers translate language into movement and flow through Kimmel spaces, blurring the lines between audience and artist. The result is a captivating, immersive experience that’s not-to-be-missed!
This US premiere is made possible through the Kimmel Center Cultural Campus’ exclusive membership in In Situ – a network of European presenters specializing in art in public spaces. The Kimmel Center is the only U.S. member, and the affiliation allows the Kimmel Center to bring unique European performances to Philadelphia.
Vision of the Artists
The questions of how we use language, how a given statement is interpreted by another, are at the center of this performance; for the city as a living-space, constantly generates new expressions, jargons and phonemic variations.
But what is the specific sound of a certain meaning? How does its embodiment look? The languages sampled in Foreign Tongues are, even before they have meaning, fundamentally sound and rhythm, ambivalent islands of sound. Dialects, regional languages and slangs get transformed into sequences of movement. What initially may seem like a tangle of languages, is turned, via the bodily adaptation in space, into a form of communication which far surpasses its linguistic content.
Credits
Dance, Choreography (Philadelphia Version): Luke Baio, Stephanie Cumming, Dong Uk Kim, Katharina Meves, Dante Murillo, Arttu Palmio, Hannah Timbrell
Artistic Direction, Choreography: Chris Haring
Composition, Sound: Andreas Berger
Light Design, Scenography: Thomas Jelinek
Costumes: Stefan Röhrle
Libretto: Aldo Giannotti
Program Texts: Stefan Grissemann, Uwe Mattheiss
Stage Management: Roman Harrer
Photo- and Video Documentation: Michael Loizenbauer
Distribution: APROPIC – Line Rousseau, Marion Gauvent
Company Management, Production: Marlies Pucher
Co-produced by: Atelier 231 (FR), Festival di Terni (IT), Freedom Festival (UK), La Strada Graz (AT), Lieux publics (FR), Norfolk & Norwich Festival (UK), Østfold kulturutvikling (NO), Oerol Festival (NL), Theater op de Markt (BE) and UZ Arts (UK).
Research-Partners: CDC Toulouse (FR), Dublin Dance Festival (IR), Tanz.Ist Dornbirn (AT), Opera Estate Festival Bassano del Grappa (I), DansBrabant (NL).
Foreign Tongues, an IN SITU Pilot project, has received a creation aid under the ACT project, co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union
Liquid Loft is supported by: MA7 Kulturabteilung der Stadt Wien (Cultural Department of the City of Vienna) and BKA Bundeskanzleramt Kunst & Kultur (Austrian Federal Chancellery Arts & Culture)
