©MatthiasZölle

Myriaden

A choreography with the Johann Sebastian Bach Goldberg Variations

“People’s view of the world is built up from a myriad, i.e. countless, events and experiences. Daniel Goldin has been inspired by the photographs of Frenchman Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004) and a sound collage of Bach music and noises from nature to create his latest choreographic “variation”, which seeks to sharpen the eye for the essential things in human life.
Images, sound and movement brilliantly complement each other to form a gesamtkunstwerk. The 70 minutes of “Myriaden” range from the carefreeness of childhood, to weltschmerz and death-near religious rituals. In their black and white stage set and costume design, Matthias Dietrich and Gaby Sogl quote almost literally from pictures taken by citizen of the world Cartier-Bresson. (…) Contemplation is hinted at by virtuosic sign language of the hands and arms. At least one of the dancers is always dancing out of line, almost imperceptibly picking up the rhythm or mood of the respective music passage. The five women are more successful at playful ease than are the four men. The latter, on the other hand, come out better in the mystical closing scenes. Cassiano Garcia steals in out of the darkness wearing a dark-grey penitential habit. “Monks” with prayer books defile across the stage in slient prayer. Tsutomu Ozeki castigates himself as an ash-showered penitent. (…)”

Marieluise Jeitschko, Westfälische Nachrichten, 4 December 2006


“The rhythms of the surfaces. Concentration on the bare essentials. Daniel Goldin’s powerful new dance evening »Myriaden« in the Kleines Haus in Münster.
For Henri Cartier-Bresson, photography was the ability to recognise the rhythm of surfaces, shading and lines. An activity of the eye, in which the camera is only a means to an end. Daniel Goldin’s new choreography »Myriaden« transforms this direct and fleeting act into a meditation of recurrence in “countless” variations. It achieves this by linking Bach’s »Aria with 30 Variations« (Goldberg Variations) in a harpsichord performance by Keith Jarret with two pictorial motifs created by Cartier-Bresson in 1933 in Valencia und Madrid. »Myriaden« is one of Goldin’s most powerful productions at Münster’s City Theatre. Not least because of its concentration on the bare essentials.(…)“

Marcus Termeer, taz nrw, 13 December 2006


“(…) Ultimately, Goldin has achieved a powerful work of choreography. (…)”

Jochen Schmidt, Ballettanz, January 2007


“(…) The almost fairytale performance ends on an atmospheric note with a short extract from Bach’s Mass in B Minor. This is a further splendid stone in the mosaic of Goldin’s choreographic career. The audience were delighted and expressed their appreciation in warm applause for all the actors.”

Hans Rochol, Die Glocke, 4 December2006


“(…) To the music of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Goldberg Variations, his (Goldin’s) ensemble achieves poetic pictures of enormous choreographic conviction.
(…) On the square of a town somewhere in the south, the five female and four male dancers present all manner of doings. At first, coming in as a group, barefoot and wearing white linen chemises that fall well below their knees (costumes: Gaby Sogl), keeping close together, holding themselves slightly bowed and looking up with watchful vigilance, they slowly take possession of the stage area.
(…) In the pictures he invents (or borrows), Goldin makes references to photographs by the French photographer Henri Chartier-Bresson. But because these are not taken from the collective pictorial memory, Goldin’s work is able to preserve an independent poetic lightness of its own that would be lost if the dancing were to a motif that had always been familiar and which was the sole purpose of the movement. Ambiguity, indeed sometimes even mystery, is a strength of the performance, keeping the space wide open for dance.
After one and a quarter hours of intense dance, the protracted applause of the premiere audience for Goldin’s choreographically convincing work, which is one of his most poetic to date, and for his impressively fused ensemble, was also a demonstration for dance theatre in Münster.”

Hanns Butterhoff, Recklinghäuser Zeitung

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