©Danny Willems

Steve Reich project

Concept, direction & choreography ISABELLA SOUPART

Musical direction MP4 QUARTET

The Steve Reich Project sees celebrated Belgian choreographer Isabella Soupart partner with the MP4 Quartet to re-imagine three of Reich’s most famous works in dance.

Belgian director, choreographer and visual artist Isabella Soupart has created a new performance work inspired from three masterpieces by Steve Reich: Pendulum Music, Different Trains and WTC 9/11, interpreted by a new generation of artists.

As a continuation of Soupart’s multi artform practice, the Steve Reich Project sees a solo dancer - Shantala Pèpe alternating with Johanna Willig Rosenstein - perform to live scores of three of Reich’s most provocative pieces. Working with video artist Kurt D’Haeseleer, the space is filled with large scale projections providing an immersive backdrop to Soupart’s choreography.

Choreographer Isabella Soupart and the MP4 Quartet link up Different Trains - 1989 Best Contemporary Composition Grammy Award - and WTC 9/11, bringing forth intimate reflections within worldwide historical drama.

In Different Trains, through immersive soundscape and fragmented testimonies, Reich evokes his Jewish American childhood during World War II, while he would have travelled on other trains, had he lived in Europe in the same period. Referring to his frequent train travels between New York and Los Angeles, Reich says : “If I had been in Europe during this period, as a Jew I would have had to ride very different trains”. With this in mind he wanted to produce a piece that would accurately reflect the whole situation. The same composition processes, repetitive music, cycles, sound tracks and testimonies, are used 20 years later in WTC 9/11, a piece written to commemorate the first main tragedy of the 21st Century, the September 11 attacks.

The Steve Reich Project is a pulsating confrontation of dance, music and video art, a raw, deeply moving statement on the frailty of the human condition.

ISABELLA SOUPART

Isabella Soupart is a choreographer, director and visual artist. She develops and presents her work in Brussels where she is based. Her singular creations apply different artistic expressions such as theatre, dance, sound effects, installations, visual arts, digital art and collective performances. She brings forth a fragmented universe in which different realities and timescales are made to coexist. Constructed as assembled elements (e.g. the merging of sound and multiple musical and visual experiences), her work involves a tangible but rigorously personal reflection on the question of contemporary creation.

In 2007, she’s a finalist for the Rolex Mentor and Protégés Arts Initiative in New-York.
Isabella Soupart is also an actress revealed to the public at large in the Dardenne Brothers movie Le

Fils and for the Franco-Chilean director Raoul Ruiz and the Berliner filmmaker Maria Speth.

Her projects involve numerous productive partnerships including visual artists Michel François, Kurt d’Haeseleer and British visual artist Jonathan Sullam, Belgian choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, American light designer Jim Clayburgh, the MP4 Quartet, photographer Danny Willems, sound designer Thomas Turine, filmmaker Sabrina Montiel-Soto and musician Ruben Martinez Orio (Ictus).

Her works - Ersase(ex), In the Wind of Time, Kiss of Death, Collision(s), After Words, I Love My Family, Steve Reich Project, Slow Down, STRETCH - are performed on the Belgian and international scenes and festivals : Kunstenfestivalsdesarts, Brussels (BE), Koninklijke Vlaams Schouwburg (KVS), Brussels (BE) / Festival Ars Musica, Brussels (BE) / Avignon Festival IN (FR) / Red Cat Theater, Los Angeles (US) / Teatro Canovas, Malaga (ES) / Teatro José Tamayo, Granada (ES) / Teatre Lliure, Barcelona (ES) / Festival Sommerszene, Salzburg (A) / Burgtheater, Vienna (A) / Eaux– Vives, Geneva (CH) / Salzlager, Innsbruck (A) / Théâtre de la Ville de Paris (FR) / Lieu Unique, Nantes (FR) / Stoa, Helsinki (FIN) / Maison de la danse de Lyon (FR) / Le Cuvier, Bordeaux (FR) Théâtre National de Chaillot, Paris (FR) / Lantaren Venster, Rotterdam (NL) / Théâtre de la Bastille, Paris (FR) / Centro Culturel de Bélem, Lisbon (PT) / Tanzhaus, Düsseldorf (DE) / La Ferme du Buisson, Paris (FR) / Festival IN d’Avignon (FR), Festival Musiq3 Flagey, Brussels (BE), MRBAB Fine Arts Museum, Brussels (BE).

MP4 QUARTET

The MP4 Quartet was created in 2008. At the time, its members, Claire Bourdet, Margaret Hermant, Pierre Heneaux, Merryl Havard are young graduates of the Royal Conservatoires of Belgium and choose to steer their work in supporting new creations as well as performing classical master pieces. They gain experience and freedom of expression at the Orpheus Institute of Gent and with the Danel, Pavel Haas, Pražák and Kronos quartets. They recently played at the Elb Filarmonie Hamburg, a piece by Pierre Slinckx, with whom they worked to create a new quartet with electronic as chamber music. The piece has just been recorded in Belgium for Label Cyprès and will be out in fall 2019. Their previous recording was a CD with bresilian musician Osman Martins, for Label Homerecords. They also took part in the Original Soundtrack (by Eric Bribosia) of Bitter Flowers, a film by Olivier Meys. For the 2019 season, among some more classical concerts, Quartet MP4 will be working with Vera Tussing, on a new project about dance and music, Tactile Quartet, in collaboration with the Kaai Theatre.

At the crossroad of diverse artistic performances, the Quartet MP4 participates in 2010 and 2012 in the Danse X Music shows I and II, benchmarks for the successful young dancers of P.A.R.T.S., in collaboration with the Royal Opera La Monnaie (Brussels). In 2011, the MP4 Quartet creates the Handelbeurs (Gent) concert around the works of Shostakovich, with commentary by the actress Elise Steenackers. The same year, they collaborate in a projection of “Different Trains” by Steve Reich, presented by Leila Film in the Namur’s Theatre and record for Cypress label two poems of Emile Verhaeren (Albert Huybrecht / chamber music II / Ultimate Melodies). The MP4 Quartet also participates in the Festival "Concerts en nos villages” hosted by Guy Danel, and their summer ends in the Gaume Jazz Festival on a white card by Fabrice Alleman (arrangements Michel Herr).

In the 2014 season, the MP4 Quartet creates the "Steve Reich Project”: a show around Steve Reich’s creations, alongside the choreographer/director Isabella Soupart. The MP4 Quartet also participates in many festivals such as the Festival of Flanders in Kortrijk, Europe in Music, Midis Minimes and plays at the Concertgebouw in Brugge and for De Groote Post in Ostend (Scoop on Tour 2014). In close collaboration with Chamber Music for Europe, the MP4 Quartet is invited to join in the Chiré-en-Montreuil (France) and Cramard’s Festivals, in Pick Opus and in the Nuit Blanche in Brussels. They also collaborate in the "Private Domain Hosokawa" project - String quartet Happening at the Concertgebouw in Bruges.

CREDITS

Concept, direction & choreography Isabella Soupart Dance Shantala Pèpe / Johanna Willig-Rosenstein

Musical direction MP4 Quartet - violin Claire Bourdet & Margaret Hermant, alto Pierre Heneaux / Karel Coninx, cello Merryl Havard

Sound design Christine Verschorren Video art Kurt D’Haeseleer
Set design video Jonathan Sullam Light design Jim Clayburgh Technical direction Matthieu Vergez Production manager Noémie Sonveau Photography Danny Willems

Production Beyond + Between asbl
Coproduction Ars Musica (BE) • Les Brigittines (BE) • H&B (BE) • Mons 2015 (BE) •

Fédération des Jeunesses Musicales (BE)

Supported by Koninklijke Vlaamse Schouwburg (BE) • Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles Conseil de l’Art de la Danse (BE) • Wallonie-Bruxelles International (BE) • Wallonie- Bruxelles Théâtre Danse (BE)

CONTACT

ARTISTIC DIRECTION

Isabella Soupart info@isabellasoupart.com isabellasoupart.com

MUSICAL DIRECTION

MP4 Quartet quatuormp4@gmail.com quatuormp4.com

PRODUCTION MANAGER

Noémie Sonveau noemie.sonveau@gmail.com cell: +32 487 495 222

PRODUCTION MANAGER FRINGE FESTIVAL
Tim Nunn producing@timnunn.com

cell : +44 7778 901 198

TOUR & BOOKING MANAGER

ZIG ZAG WORLD
Poney Gross - director poney@zigzagworld.be
tel office : +32 2 537 25 25 cell : +32 496 523 982