“It is the purpose of art to make new realities perceivable and visible.” (Paul Klee)

The project ist committed to this quotation by Paul Klee, who considered the fine arts as part of a more complex whole. Paul Klee was interested not so much in a static state as in spatial dynamics and the development of an endless balance of movement and correlations. Klee’s “detached mobility and new spatiality” is translated with music, dance and the medium of video.

In our project, themes from Klee’s theory of pictorial forms are experimentally translated into motion by dancers performing at different locations along the way from the main entrance to the Auditorium. While musicians perform duet or solo variations of fragments from Johann Sebastian Bach’s "Art of the Fugue", the viewer is guided by this staged sign into the Auditorium, where the orchestra gathers for the "Musical Offering" and concludes its performance of Bach with the "Canon Perpetuum".

The composer Sandor Veress was inspired to write his “Homage to Paul Klee” by seven of the artist’s paintings. The video projected concurrently with the concert creates a new, moving image which permeates the architecture of the new premises, bringing to the fore “that which lies behind”. Space, motion and music all become interrelated. Dancing bodies move deep within the core of the Centre. Are they real? Are the events portrayed in the image contemporaneous with what the viewer sees?

Artistic Directors: Erich Höbarth, Félix Duméril, Stijn Celis.
Solists: Andreas Grau und Götz Schumacher (piano).
Video production: Ehret Media Design Bern.

Performances

Tue

26 June

2 p.m., 6 p.m.

Performing time: 60 minutes.
Venue: Auditorium, Stairway, and Foyer.

Admission free. Tickets required.

Sponsored on this day by Galenica AG.