Text by media-scenography.org
The concert installation stages the encounter of two musical partners, whose relationship is actually characterised by a strict hierarchy:
when music and fireworks come together, the fireworks usually take on a subordinate role. They accentuate the movement of the music, adding a spectacular, visual component.
when music and fireworks come together, the fireworks usually take on a subordinate role. They accentuate the movement of the music, adding a spectacular, visual component.
Together with the organist Dominik Susteck, Lea Letzel developed the foundations for a conceptual improvisation within a fixed framework, which has fireworks and an organ come together as equal partners in a chamber music duet. With the specific notes made by flying rockets and the crackling of silver fountains, fireworks are brought back into the church—here Kunst-Station Sankt Peter’s of Cologne’s Jesuit community—and the sonic qualities of pyrotechnic effects become a player on equal footing.
As an artist and dramatist, Lea Letzel is interested in “…the (manipulative) structures of the spectacular, the fine line, which makes a simulacrum appear true and real and a fake appear as a reality.” In her publication “Magic Media,” which deals with the relationship between theatre, theatricality and media, she makes reference to Jesuit theatre, which has used the special effects of pyrotechnics—their spectacular cascades of light and sound eruptions—in Mass as an experienceable dimension of the celestial and as a bridge to the heavenly since the middle of the 15th century. The performance in the Jesuit church St. Peter’s takes up this medieval tradition of religious staging and theatricality.
Artistic Concept and Realization:
Lea Letzel
Lea Letzel
Pyrotechnics:
Lea Letzel
Lea Letzel
Organ:
Dominik Susteck
Dominik Susteck
Fotos: Tassilo Letzel
