The Bosch Experience part I

Choreography and Iconoclasm

In collaboration with the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna and the Paintings Gallery Georg Blaschke and his artistic team presented two new creations that were shown in the frame of ImpulsTanz – Vienna International Dance Festival #31: Prélude Paradise and Bosch frontal.
Both works were created on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of Hieronymus Bosch’s death in 2016 and inspired by the world-famous triptych painting The Last Judgement, which is exhibited at the Gallery of the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. Hieronymus Bosch (1450/55–1516) is one of the most important and influential painters of the medieval era. The compelling power of his work and its actuality yearn for an artistic reaction as they reveal a variety of implications in contemporary choreographic thinking.
The performances took place at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, a special location for which they were specifically devised. Each performance was designed to be preceded by an introduction to the painting.

Prélude Paradise
Choir and Movement for three voices

This musical and choreographic composition for three female performers focuses on the left inside wing of the retable, The Earthly Paradise.
With their different backgrounds of traditional polyphonic singing and contemporary choreography, Clélia Colonna and Georg Blaschke meet to initiate a first time collaboration during which they develop strategies to interpret in a performative manner the distinctive work of Hieronymus Bosch. The main parts of the choir were created during a residency in Bassano del Grappa in Italy at the church San Bonaventura. The songs are partly self-composed and were created in close collaboration with the performers and the costume designer during several stages of improvisation and movement practice.
Voice, fabric and body are the essential parameters of this performative response to the painting.

Bosch frontal

A choreographic piece for four dancers based on the analysis of the central panel – The Last Judgement and the Seven Deadly Sins – and of the right inside wing – Hell and the Prince of Hell.
The setting is embedded in a minimalistic light installation and follows a principle of reduction.
By putting aside the abundance of symbols and instruments of torture represented in the painting, bodily constellations and relations are unveiled and scrutinised. The specific texture of the costumes affects the partially improvised actions and crucially contributes to determine the dramaturgy of the performance.
The purity of physical postures as well as their spatial tendencies create a phenomenon of choreographic mirroring that frees our way of viewing the painting towards a thoroughly new interpretation.
A performative reference to Bosch’s obsession for detail and to the frontal vehemence of the painting.