ANIMA - [a part of Alias] for piano and live computer
Piano: Célimène Daudet
Anima should be seen as the most intimate part of the Alias series. The originality of its writing is rooted in composer Jacopo Baboni Schilingi’s first and foremost ambition, which is to put the electronic devices and the new possibilities they bring to the listening experience back into focus for this chapter, to create a new dream landscape. Anima is really about breathing and its ability to bring some poetry into a performance. The pianist’s breath is put front and center in Anima, and invites the listener to a sensory loss, pushing them to enter the performer’s intimacy and thoughts. Breathing is performed through the composer’s creations as pure matter, a symbol of an inner musical voice. The act of breathing, which is the most closely linked to the will to live, displays the performer’s inner mood for all to see. As a sign of life that symbolizes coming into this world, but also the last moments of our lives, in Anima, breathing symbolizes the perpetual and cyclical movement of our existences. While in Terra, it should be heard as a symbol of emancipation and almost warrior-like, now breathing must be listened to, is measured through its frailty and singularity. As a subtle element that constantly reveals everyone’s inner consciences, breathing in Anima goes as far as supplanting the music score written for the piano. With Anima, Jacopo Baboni Schilingi aims to create a sensitive intimacy through an original stage performance. This modular composition puts pianist Célimène Daudet’s breathing front and centre, and lets it evolve as the music goes. Only the pianist’s breathing changes, and under the electronic devices that surround her during the concert, is broadcast live. A sensor, conceived by David Kuller, on the performer herself, shows all of her inner moods before she even gets on the stage. The direct analysis of her psychological data defines the direct treatment of the instrument. Thus the musicality of the body is going to soar above the piano playing, pushing the audience to embrace the auditive landscapes of the pianist’s inner moods. The act of playing music progressively gives way to the breathing. She leaves her instrument, her motionless body facing the crowd as her breathing keeps invading the listening space, to go suffocate in time, and then disappear completely. As a true performing feat, every performance of Anima is unique. While phrases and notes on the piano follow one same repetition, but the breathing is independent from the pianist’s ability to create different and varied nuances.