A pack of dogs crosses the stage. About a dozen animals in the Cour d'Honneur of the Palais des Papes, (The Popes' Palace) roaming around, turning, barking, growling, sleeping. For Alain Platel, the dogs in Wolf describe a period under threat; a society regulated by fear. The threat is political or economic. An unrelenting social fear which is manipulated everywhere. At the same time author and choreographer, this Flemish man leads his troupe and pits the terror and the fear incarnated by the dogs against the musical joie de vivre and apparent merriness of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The frivolous legendary and spirited partition “Trop de Notes” and the exuberance of a young man at the end of the 18th century comes into contact with the present and uncertain beginning of a new millennium. Eccentric and pleasure-seeking, Mozart tried to compose partitions of an orgasmic nature for female voices enabling them to reach vocal climaxes. Voluptuous, sensual, his music sometimes assumes melancholic accents. Mozart was not a simple man, he was also a rebel, struggling fiercely to destroy established order. He vehemently contested the authority of his father who was overly keen to make his son into his perfect little musician. Wolfgang, the Wunderkind in spite of himself – so it is said - escaped on occasion from his lessons and compositions to Kärtnerstrasse. There, forming a wild herd with other kids, he went around with a pack of dogs chasing rats, and was soon to use his street-life activities as inspiration for Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.The young Mozart, an otherwise ordinary boy but with musical genius, loved to hear passers-by in the street whistling his music. “Popular music”, associated by analogy today with images of luxurious Viennese palaces in baroque Austria. “In Iets op Bach,” says Alain Platel, “in proposing another way of presenting Bach's music, many people have been able to discover what they had believed inaccessible. In Wolf, we also play with images which habitually accompany this repertoire. I associate Mozart with the image of women wearing wigs, taking tea. I associated with it an atrocious bourgeois milieu who adopted this music as their own. I want to play on this prejudice.” Hailing from Ghent, a former student of Barbara Pearce, with a degree in Psychology and Teaching, Alain Platel, as early as 1984, took part in the group Les Ballets C. de la B. After Tristezza Complice, Bernadetje, Iets op Bach and Tous des Indiens, he is now directing a new troupe of young actors, dancers and performers with exceptional ardour in a furious depiction of the contemporary world. In the middle of the Palais des Papes, the emblem of Avignon's historical heritage, a modern building is erected. A structure made of steel and concrete. Scaffolding, a wire-mesh curtain. Two levels which look like shopping centres you can see on outskirts of today's big cities, mushrooms of the urban periphery. Bert Neumann's décor places at the historical heart of the city, one of the emblems of its suburbs. Within this décor, musicians and singers perform about thirty pieces from Mozart's repertoire, mixed with extracts of international light music. From a variety of different horizons, the dancers have themselves constructed Wolf around their personal experiences. Wants, needs passions and the contradictions of each of them have their place on this stage, catalysed by the game master, under the watchful eye of playwright Hildegard De Vuyst and of choreographer Gabriela Carrizzo. “I'm not interested in pure dance”, explains Alain Platel. “I want to confront individuals with certain ways so they are moved. It's more the individuals than their ability to move their bodies, which interests me and which attracts me. But it's never enough. They all have a passion which is more or less linked to movement. It's the confrontation of one person with another which is exciting.”
Distribution
music: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
stage direction Alain Platel
danced by :Quan Bui Ngoc, Franck Chartier, Serge Aimé Coulibaly, Raphaëlle Delaunay, Lisi Estaràs, Elizabeth Estaràs Roisman, Grégory Kamoun Sonigo, Necati Köylü, Samuel Lefeuvre, Michael Lumana, Juliana Neves, Simon Rowe, Kurt Vanmaeckelberghe, Serge Vlerick
singers :Marina Comparato, Aleksandra Zamojska, Johanette Zomer
orchestra :Klangforum Wien
arrangements:Sylvain Cambreling
choreography :Gabriela Carrizzo
dramaturg :Hildegard De Vuyst
scenography: Bert Neumann
costumes :Lies Van Assche
Production
Coproduction :Les Ballets C. de la B. (Gand), Ruhrtriennale (Allemagne), Opéra national de Paris
Avec la participation :du ministère de la Communauté flamande