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" Thomas Marek erweckt eine alte Kunst zu neuem Leben."
Werner Stiefele, Stuttgarter Zeitung
Werner Stiefele, Stuttgarter Zeitung
D R A M A - love songs & other jazz (2012)
In 2012 Thomas Marek will present his new tap dance performance at Kampnagel, Hamburg.
If feet can talk, their language is tap dance. And if DRAMA is to take its queue from them, it goes one step further to claim that words can actually dance.
DRAMA explores the creative possibilities of dance and diction, seeking to discover both the peculiarities and the shared qualities of text and dance. While language is generally understood as an intellectual way of transporting content and meaning, dance seems to be a means of expressing emotions. DRAMA won´t draw this line. Instead, the two forms of expression are made to communicate with each other, to argue, meet, and merge. DRAMA is not so much about dancing a text as dancing with the text, with everything language consists of: message, image, sound, tune and rhythm.
Together with the literary translator Miriam Mandelkow (Richard Price, Martha Gellhorn, David Vann a.o.), Thomas Marek will create a tap dance show which blends music, text, language and translation into a poetic mélange. As its starting point and central theme DRAMA uses the well-known jazz standard „Lush Life“ by Billy Strayhorn, both a song about failed love and a jazz portrait. DRAMA will turn the five stanzas of „Lush Life“ into five acts of a stage performance, each of which revolves around a vital theme – longing, love, madness, anxiety, and death –, commenting upon them with autobiographical quotations, poems, song lyrics and excerpts from selected novels. Thus a complex, kaleidoscopic tableau of dance, rhythm, music and words - spoken, sung, danced and shaken up - will emerge within the given song structure.
Mandelkow and Marek will dissect the texts and transform them by infusing them with different rhythms, tunes and intonations, by enlarging them, translating them and using them as musical instruments. Through the choreography words will be become visible and appear on the scene as language in motion. Tap and jazz will counterpoint linguistic rhythm, form polyphonic layers and a collage of sound and image. Texts will be spoken, projected, sung und translated into other languages. Where dance, language and jazz meet, that´s where a powerful, rhythmic, visionary dance show will take place.
More infos coming at the end of 2011…..
Unterstützt und gefördert von der Kulturbehörde der Freien und Hansestadt Hamburg
Thomas Marek & Band (2011) ...video inside
Back to the roots… Thomas Marek & Band was his first tap dance show which successfully performed from 1993 to 2000 in theaters and various jazz festivals all over Germany & Switzerland.
For 2011 Thomas Marek is putting together an new jazz band, that will premier on October 28th at the Überjazz Festival at Kampnagel, Hamburg.
More Infos coming soon…..
ORCHESTRA - expansions & dimensions (2009/2010) video inside
Orchestra - expansions & dimensions is the new tap dance performance by Thomas Marek.It plays with the double meaning of the word "orchestra". With a ten-strong tap ensemble, Thomas Marek stages a fast-paced but insightful connection between dancers and dancefloor, in which dance, movement, rhythm and the "orchestra" – that is,the dancefloor – combine in a body of sound to form a large tap dance orchestra. For tap dancers, the stage or dancefloor plays an important role. It is this danceform's amplification instrument, the resonating body that enhances or limits the acoustics and sound of the dancers shoes. Orchestra - expansions & dimensions is a poetic concert by a virtuoso tap dance orchestra. Aperformance in which dance and music come together as one. The dancersbecome not only the musical elements but also the choreographic composition. In this highlycharged environment, the ensemble experiments with the stylistic elements of tap, attempting to gobeyond them so that they might be redefined.The principals of jazz are combined with tap, music and electronics in a playful way. Elaboratearrangements comprising sample collages, loops, live improvisation and choreography complementone another, creating an amusing, intelligent and poetic live performance. As in his previous productions, this new work by Thomas Marek combines the popularity of tap withan ambitious artistic approach.
Orchestra- expansions & dimensions ist eine Produktion von Thomas Marek in Koproduktion mit Kampnagel Hamburg.
Unterstützt und gefördert von der Kulturbehörde der Freien und Hansestadt Hamburg und des Fonds darstellende Künste.