Space Architects – Yui Kawaguchi and Aki Takase give a special duo at the Freiburg International Dance Festival

The silhouette of Yui Kawaguchi is superimposed on the strangely foreshortened shadow of pianist Aki Takase and her instrument. A little further to the right, the dancer's snake-like arm has taken on a life of its own on the stage wall. The complex space of sound, installation and movement created by the Japanese artists is translated for a moment by the shadow cast into fragmented surfaces. It almost seems as if this is where the skyline of this evening showed itself. "Chaconne - The City in the Piano IV" begins with the jazz musician in a red floor-length satin dress awkwardly sitting down at the piano and taking the visitor of the 18th Freiburg International Dance Festival at the E-Werk on a night ride. The light projections on the walls could be from car headlights on a rain-soaked road, and yet they are the reflections of the mobile made of strung silver frames (Kazue Taguchi). And then Yui Kawaguchi also enters the stage in short black pants and a cleverly laced hooded top (costume: Frauke Ritter). Gently groping, she adjusts to the pearly piano sounds, on tiptoe she angles her arms, shifts her weight backward, then her arms reach out. It seems as if each of her body parts has a life of its own. Yui Kawaguchi is an exceptional dancer. She dances Aki Takase's composition in flowing movements, translates classical ballet figures into the contemporary; in this way, she falls into the splits every now and then and at the same time performs a gracefully dysfunctional body. "Chaconne - The City in the Piano IV" could be one of those artful evenings that murmuringly assert their own avant-garde claim. It's not just the matter-of-factness of the interplay - not the first time the two have taken on a traditional dance like the Chaconne - that makes this label not want to stick. It is also Yui Kawaguchi's girlish wit that gives this chaconne a different tone. The Berlin-based dancer sticks out her tongue like a leprechaun so that it almost seems to jump onto her hand, leaps like a frog, uses her body as a shadow play and dances the Charleston. At one point she leans against the back front of the transom windows and immediately you think you're watching a scene from an expressionist film. Then she hits the large ventilation pipes, using not only herself but also the room as a resonating body of music. Aki Takase and Yui Kawaguchi do not tell about life in cities, they build spaces, structure them, make them visible. For example, when Yui Kawaguchi unwinds a thread and moors it into a far-reaching net, the end of which is stretched so that it serves her as a kind of ballet barre. Or when Aki Takase throws the silver frames onto the piano strings that they bounce and accentuate her playing with discords. During one of the encores, Yui Kawaguchi sticks a flower made of wire into the piano, another she puts around her partner's neck like a noose. Friction can certainly be a quality.

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