Machinefabriek – Re​:​Moving (Music for Choreographies by Yin Yue)

Geist im Kino

It is hard to believe just how prolific Rutger Zuydervelt is as Machinefabriek, and how he finds the time to put together something as thoughtful and involved as the soundtracks created here for choreographer Yin Yue‘s dance pieces. There are two separate commissions here, both inhabiting a world of air and space, drifting from movement to stasis, gathering momentum and then watching and waiting as it dissipates around us.

“Music For A Measurable Existence” opens with wind drawing across an open space, flurries of birds, the shock of martial drumming that seems to come from nowhere. Electronic distortion, the sense of alienation, a build and sweep and then the calm after the storm, a drifting, liminal sensation. The sense of surveying the aftermath of something is keen here, dirty fragments interspersed with a lull that allows the dancers to come to terms with the after-effects.

There is always motion, but it feels difficult to maintain somehow. When beats are introduced later, the feeling is cleaner but more menacing, with intricate drum patterns that allow the listener to sense the momentum of the bodies, rhythmic and precise. The crescendo is reached and we enter a tranquil limbo, but with an underlying faint air of tension lurking in the background, misshapen, lost in the vast, empty atrium, bright light streaming through catching the dust motes and specks of life as the sounds recede into light.

By contrast, “Re:moving” opens with distant reverberation. Both pieces start slowly and allow the listener to be drawn gradually. There seems to be more time and it is about the spaces between sounds, a slow patchwork build-up that when it changes you suddenly feel the build up of tension. There is more rhythmic interplay here and you can sense the clash of bodies, the scrape of electronics. Anne Bakker‘s strings lend a whole other sensation to the proceedings, more of a profundity that adds to the distant barrage.

The sounds are heavy, leaving a more obvious aftermath against which the plucked strings of the violin and their counterpoint sweep stand out, harbingers of a newer, calmer reality. You can imagine the languid movements that accompany this comedown feeling. A rhythm like a steam train at rest slowed right down allows the strings to take centre stage, wreaths of smoke curling like smoke towards the vast, glass ceiling, a tense slumber becoming swept into the dancers’ wakes.

Both pieces on Re:Moving contain distinct passages, but they pass into one another with barely noticed ease, drawing the listener along, content to follow wherever they are led. The emotions and sensations are vibrant and you can almost feel the movement of the dancers. Both work really well as stand alone pieces, but it would be fascinating to see them in their true environment.

-Mr Olivetti-