Tension Orchestra
In Tension Orchestra, female bodybuilders become instruments and form a string quartet played by professional musicians. The string instruments designed for this purpose are precisely tuned to the respective physical strength of the athletes, who hold their poses like in a tableau vivant for three acts and are played accordingly. The musicians work with guided improvisation/open composition.
Bodybuilders: Almuth Jabs, Beate Edwards, Elisabeth Kammerer, Nicole Görs
Komponist: Yiannis Loukos
Musicians: Clara Baesecke, Noey Gvili, Julia Jolanta Czerniawska, Yiannis Loukos
Instrument builder: Mohamed Khoudir
Funded by Kunstfonds_Soloprojekte
Specially designed instruments with violin, guitar, viola and harp strings are attached to the athletes’ bodies. While holding classical poses for as long as possible, they stretch the strings to specific notes so that musicians can play a specially composed score.
The interplay creates a fragile situation: the athletes strive for maximum body control, the musicians for tonal precision – both pushing themselves to the limits of what is possible. Maintaining constant tension for the required duration is virtually impossible. This creates a moment of shared struggle and failure, in which the performers are not performing, but working.
The performance reveals that both bodybuilders and musicians invest countless hours in perfecting their movements.
Nevertheless, these movements are valued differently by society: in terms of norms, artistic recognition and class assignment – especially with regard to bodies that are perceived as female.
In an attempt at joint creation and joint failure, two disciplines of aesthetic-functional physicality come together.
Tension Orchestra thus also negotiates the social value of perfection, usefulness and productivity, calling it into question at the moment of exhaustion
