A street cleaner sweeps the floor on the dimly lit stage. Then, to the music of Bach, the musicians trickle in \u2013 before a pumping rhythm brings everything to life. The Netherlands Wind Ensemble present their version of ‘Fearful Symmetries’ by John Adams as a day in the big city. Together, the racing music and visual overload make for a fittingly feverish atmosphere. The Netherlands Wind Ensemble knows all about creating a lively buzz, and this time they\u2019ve brought along four collectives from the worlds of dance and theatre to shake things up. Artistic director Bart Schneemann has been wanting to perform Adams\u2019s music for a long while now \u2013 he sees this American composer\u2019s hip, eclectic, intense music as a perfect fit for his ensemble.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The only obstacle was finding a piece with the right instrumentation. Now Schneemann\u2019s son Julian has fluently reworked ‘Fearful Symmetries’ for wind instruments only. His strings-free version of this late-1980s orchestral work with its signature \u2018big-band-meets-symphonic\u2019 sound, is even more wild and compelling than the original. The musicians take the audience on a by turns blistering and sweetly melodious journey, and the unrelenting beat means there\u2019s little chance of escape. The symmetry of the title lies in the repeated patterns and fixed structures. The Netherlands Wind Ensemble add an extra dimension by playing the piece twice in a row, in mirrored formation. But on the surface, it is the dynamism and variation that stand out. Adams himself described the piece as \u2018travel music\u2019, as a continuous movement against the background of a shifting urban landscape \u2013 and the Netherlands Wind Ensemble has taken that description literally. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Those\nwizards from Hotel Modern theatre company have built a maquette-sized city on\nthe stage, and with the help of a camera and projection screen they take the audience\non a virtual journey into it. Adams\u2019s eclectic music is echoed in the\nanachronisms (an 18th-century figurine playing pinball, anyone?) and stylistic\nclashes, while piles of garbage and the ruins of war set an uneasy undertone.\nMeanwhile, three couples from as many dance companies \u2013 Duda Paiva Company, ISH\nDance Company and Mor Shani \u2013 use a combination of street dance and modern\ndance to zoom in on city life with all its miscommunications and people living\nalongside one another. In the beautiful closing scene, night falls over the\ncity and peace returns.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Those wizards from Hotel Modern theatre company have built a maquette-sized city on the stage, and with the help of a camera and projection screen they take the audience on a virtual journey into it. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-press"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotelmodern.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotelmodern.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotelmodern.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotelmodern.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotelmodern.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2649"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/hotelmodern.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2649\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2651,"href":"https:\/\/hotelmodern.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2649\/revisions\/2651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotelmodern.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotelmodern.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotelmodern.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}