HALLERSTEIN dance art event, Shanghai

HALLERSTEIN dance art event took place on 9th September 2010 at 8. pm in Shanghai Zendai Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in the framework of Slovenian national presentation at EXPO, Shanghai. The event has been produced by ACE KIBLA in cooperation with Slovenian National Theatre Maribor and the artists Edward Clug, Cameron Bobro, Huiqin Wang and Peter Tomaž Dobrila.
The concept of Hallerstein project is based on the integration of cultural heritage, performing arts and sophisticated technologies. Being dual in nature, the project integrates historical documents with the contemporary art research production, thus establishing a link between the past and the present, between Europe and China. The project creators have been looking for inspiration in a historical figure of Slovenian origin, Ferdinand Augustine Hallerstein. He was a researcher in fields of astronomy, cartography, mathematics, religion and politics. Being a missionary, scientist and Jesuit, he lived close to the Chinese court and the emperor in years 1739 and 1774. Hallerstein was in close contact with the Chinese emperor Qianlong, an exquisitely educated man interested in Jesuit science, particularly mathematics and astronomy. This is an example of how two men of entirely different cultural backgrounds succeeded in establishing mutual understanding, which has been attested by letters preserved in major archives around the world.

The art event Hallerstein being based on a multilayered approach, it integrates several fields of aesthetic observation into a stage installation. Visual works, graphic works, calligraphy and paintings by Huiqin Wang that depict alphabetical characters, letters, scientific symbols and portraits of Hallerstein, are a constituent part of the scenery. The physical stage environment is further replaced by the use of video, three-dimensional graphic objects and environments as well as animation and the virtual infinite virtual space.

The traditional Chinese two-dimensional puppet as projected on screen moves in infinite spatial loops, somewhat reminding of the infinity of the Universe, yet it is oriented by and bound to the dancer. Edward Clug, directing it, thus searches for its limits as well as his own, shifting between power and submission, between spatial freedom and restriction, between curiosity and experience, between discovery and the desire to return to the primary state, between the escape and the entrapment – which are all symbolic as well as physical oppositions. As he sets free from the puppet, his supposed freedom again gets entangled into the limits of another loop, which can be crossed neither by the human body nor mind.

Basso profondo by Cameron Bobro, the timeless narrator of the story on Hallerstein, interprets the story using songs and tunes of centuries past as well as the traditional Slovenian, European and Chinese music. Jesuit approaches to music are thus intertwined with the Chinese. Both derive from philosophy, which is transformed by Bobro, the orchestrator, into microtonal music based on numerous colourful tones that are to be found between the black and white piano keys.

News
(cri.cn)
http://gb.cri.cn/27824/2010/09/10/2625s2988036.htm
http://croatian.cri.cn/361/2010/09/10/21s36782.htm
http://gb.cri.cn/27824/2010/09/13/3245s2989648.htm
http://croatian.cri.cn/641/2010/09/13/21s36895.htm
(expo2010.si)
http://www.expo2010.si/si/novice/369/detail.html

Live vocals: Cameron Bobro
Live calligraphy: Huiqin Wang
Theremin: Peter Tomaž Dobrila
Concept: Huiqin Wang
Integral concept: Aleksandra Kostič
Production: ACE KIBLA, Maribor, Slovenia
www.hallerstein.net

Zendai Contemporary Art Exhibition Hall
Wuwei Creative Space,1436,Jungong Rd, Building No,101,Yangpu
District, Shanghai, 200433
T/F: 86 21 3512 0988
info@dca.zendaiart.com
http://dca.zendaiart.com
Opening on 9 September, 2010
Tuesday to Sunday (Monday closed)
10:00 am-6:00 pm

Invitation Hallerstein performance (.pdf)
Invitation Hallerstein performance (.pdf, A2)

ACE KIBLA programme is supported by Ministry of Culture, Municipality of Maribor and The Slovenian Office of Youth. KIBLA is a part of Multimedia Centres Net Slovenia.