ensemble L'Abrupt : repertory

It can't be dying, - it's too rouge, - Creation 2011

Commission of the Toronto Dance Theatre (direction : Christopher House) to Alban Richard.

Choreography : Alban Richard
Dancers : dancers of the Toronto Dance Theatre : David Houle, Pulga Muchochoma, Simon Renaud, Brodie Stevenson , Naishi Wang...
Music : William Basinsky, The Disintegration Loops, Dip 2.2

Creation on the 19th, 20th,21st,25th, 26th,27th,28th May 2011, Winchester Street Theatre, Toronto, Canada

Production : Toronto Dance Theatre, Toronto, Canada.
With the aid from L'Institut Français and Consulat Général de France à Toronto

institut français consulat

ABOUT THE MUSIC

The Disintegration Loops, were created out of tape loops Basinski made back in the early 1980s. Originally, he just wanted to transfer the loops from analog reel-to-reel tape to digital hard disk. However, once he started the transfer, he discovered something: the tapes were old and they were disintegrating as they played and as he recorded.
"The music was dying." But he kept recording, documenting the death of these loops.

He employs repeating loop that slowly deteriorates into oblivion. The loops are very simple: a lush string or synth melody backed by atmospheric arpeggio countermelodies. The melodies are, as Basinski notes, pastoral: lush, simple works intended as idealized representations of nature and beauty. In theory, then, this is ambient music: music designed to set a mood, evoke a feeling (like a cinematic score), but one that is not designed for deep listening. That, I'm sure, was Basinski's initial design when he first created these loops in 1982.

But time has slowly killed these loops and the pastoral (and ambient) ideals they once represented. What we hear on The Disintegration Loops are not poetic images of nature or beauty but nature and beauty as they truly exist in this world: always fleeting, slowly dying. What makes these works so memorable is not the fact that the loops are slowly disintegrating but the fact that we get to hear their deaths. In a very real way, we experience the muddled, ugly, brutal realities of life. What's more, these realities of life are, in their own way, incredibly beautiful, perhaps more beautiful than the original, pristine loops ever could have been.

Alban Richard