Artists · Les Éléments

A dance show by Romana Agnel & Kenneth Weiss

Romana Agnel - choreography 
Kenneth Weiss - harpsichord
Cracovia Danza - 4 dancers (including Romana Agnel)
Monika Polak-Luścińsk - costumes
xx - videographer

Duration 70’
Harpsichord amplification

Music by Jean-Féry Rebel, Jean-Philippe Rameau, François Couperin & Jean de Sainte-Colombe

Inspired by the unique, innovative musical works of Jean-Féry Rebel (1666-1747), Romana Agnel and Kenneth Weiss propose a multi-faceted performance bringing together dance, music and video imagery to project man’s awe and veneration of creation and the Natural world.

Rebel was among the very first composers in the 18th century to explore the potential of dance and music without text, creating a new artistic form whose narrative is conveyed by movement and music alone. Two of these revolutionary works are featured in the programme, Les Éléments and Les Caractères de la Danse. Les Éléments is a powerfully avant-garde work that traces our planet’s creation with Le Chaos - a tonal cluster - from which the four elements, Fire, Earth Air, and Water, immerge to create the world. Each element has its own musical theme that runs through the entire work. At the same time, four dancers, each representing an element and in vivid costumes, embody these same natural forces.

In his preface to Les Éléments, Rebel writes “It appeared to me that dance and music could represent the elements in all their diversity, through different musical forms, as well as the costumes and movements of the dancers.” Rebel also wrote that Les Éléments could be successfully transcribed for solo harpsichord by a knowledgeable player. Transcriptions of large orchestral works for solo harpsichord were popular in the 18th century, enabling the beauty and excitement of opera and ballet to be heard in the salons. Kenneth Weiss has taken up this challenge.

Les Caractères de la Danse, Rebel’s encyclopedic work of 18th century dance, offers an incomparable view of the elegance and grace of French Baroque dance through dazzling footwork, hand gestures and geometric floor patterns. This ballet is already in the repertory of Cracovia Danza, Romana Agnel’s dance company.

Several intimate scenes, exploring the themes of love and loss, with music by Rebel’s contemporaries, Sainte-Colombe, Rameau and Francois Couperin, complete this unique narrative art form.

Although the initiators of this project, Kenneth Weiss and Romana Agnel, are both deeply committed to historically informed performance, they chose to illustrate the forces of Nature, both its brutality and sweetness, by setting the show in a modern context with powerful video projections, in contrast to the extreme refinement of 18th Century aristocratic France.

Romana Agnel 

Romana Agnel © Ilja Van de Pavert

The dancer, choreographer and art historian Romana Agnel is the founder and artistic director of Cracovia Danza, Poland’s only professional Ballet de Cour. She has created several choreographies of operas and ballets in Poland, including the Warsaw Chamber Opera and the Krakow Opera, as well as at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris, the Atelier lyrique de Tourcoing, the Oberlin Theatre of Conservatory in America, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw and the Margravial Opera House in Beyreuth. Romana also created and directs the Krakow Dance Festival, Cracovia Danza, which takes place in August each year in Krakow, and for which she has created most of her choreographies and Ballet de Cour performances. As a lecturer and author of several publications on the history of dance she has been awarded several prizes in Poland as well as the Légion d'honneur by the French government.

http://cracoviadanza.pl/en/tancerz/43

Kenneth Weiss

Kenneth Weiss - photo © Jenny Gorman

Co-director alongside William Christie for the acclaimed first four editions of Les Jardins de Voix, Kenneth Weiss directed two staged productions at the Académie du Festival International d’Aix en Provence, Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas and Madrigals (works by Monteverdi). He was musical director of Tonadillas Escenicas, a late eighteenth century music theater work by Esteve and De Laserna, in Almagro, Spain. Kenneth Weiss has also directed several choreographic shows. He was musical director of Trisha Brown's M.O., a ballet on Bach's Musical Offering, directed Les Arts Florissants in Jiri Kylian's ballet Doux Mensonges and recorded the soundtrack of his ballet Il faut qu’une porte, both in the repertory of the Paris Opera Ballet. With the dancer Macarena Vergara, he created Clavenco, a show that highlights the influence of flamenco on the work of Scarlatti and Soler with traditional flamenco musicians. Each of these shows has toured extensively in Europe.

https://www.satirino.fr/artists/kenneth-weiss

Cracovia Danza

Photo © Cracovia Danza

Founded by the dancer and choreographer Romana Agnel, Cracovia Danza is the only professional ballet company in Poland that specialises in early and Baroque dance. The company’s repertory is inspired in particular by the treatises of dance masters and historical iconographic sources, and its numerous performances have taken it to the stages of the Teatr Wielki - Polish National Opera in Warsaw, the Warsaw Chamber Opera, the ICE Conference Centre, the National Music Forum, the Teatro di Villa Torlonia in Roma, and the Margravial Opera House in Bayreuth. Cracovia Danza also promotes Polish culture abroad and has performed in more than 30 countries, including Morocco, France, Russia, Germany, China, Japan and Korea.

http://cracoviadanza.pl/en/aktualnosc/50#

Musical programme

Jean-Féry Rebel 1666-1747
Les Éléments transcribed for solo harpsichord by Kenneth Weiss
Le Chaos, Air pour la terre, le feu et l'eau, Chaconne, Ramage, Rossignols, Loure, Tambourins 1 & 2,
Sicilienne, Air pour l'amour, Caprice

François Couperin 1668-1733
Les idées heureuses, L’Harlequin, Le rossignol en amour

Jean de Sainte-Colombe 1640-1700
Les regrets transcribed for solo harpsichord by Kenneth Weiss

Jean-Philippe Rameau 1683-1764
L’entretien des muses

Jean-Féry Rebel
Les Caractères de la Danse, transcribed for solo harpsichord by Kenneth Weiss
Prélude, Courante, Menuet, Bourée, Chaconne, Sarabande, Gigue, Rigaudon, Passepied, Gavotte, Loure,
Musette