Bliss. A thing of the past?
Photo: Natali Glisic
Yesterday I had the pleasure of seeing Bliss. A thing of the past? An appropriation created by Andrea Amort, honoring the work of Viennese modern dance pioneer Grete Wiesenthal. The piece has so many layers and I recommend reading more about it: here.
However, I also have my personal layers in there, since Katharina Senk , one of the four great dancers, chose Magic Wall for her solo FEVER, a composition I created and released together with Wolfgang Schlögl aka I-Wolf in 2021.
First, experiencing an artist interweaving with my own music will always be deeply moving for me. It's such an indescribable experience..
Then, there is the history of the music itself. It's based on a completely improvised seven minutes solo piano piece, that I recorded four years ago, when I created my solo album No Love Without Justice. The recording sessions were such a significant part of a healing process in personally challenging times and I remember the moment I played it, very well. I didn't put the piece on the solo album, for reasons I can't recall. But a couple of years later I met Wolfgang in the midst of the chaos of a global pandemic and we decided to work on music together. We took the piece in it's full length, unedited, and Wolfi went into a beautiful dialog with it in his own unique way. That's how it became Magic Wall.
With Katharina dancing, the journey of the piece took another unexpected turn and I'm very curious where it will still go...
Thank you Wolfgang and Katharina for giving me so many moments of bliss!
The beautiful picture of Katharina Senk dancing was taken by TakeMeToTheRiot.