this is
the archive

feat. Mariangela Tinelli, Matija Ferlin, Jefta Van Dinther, Guillaume Marie, live music by the n-ensemble

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In September 2004, Phoenix was premiered in Amsterdam, an evening length multi-media dance performance with fashion by Michel Keuper and Francisco van Benthum, video by Eric Frymark and music by Koen Nutters and the N Ensemble.

Martin Butler is one of the more prominent choregraphers of his generation for who the bastions of dance are no longer sacred. Butler views his work as a part of, and a response to, an image orientated culture, and affiliates himself rather with visual arts, lifestyle and pop culture. He often operates outside the borders of dance - commissioned by fashion designers such as JOFF, Berhard Willhelm, and labels such as Diesel Stylelab and lee, photographers and stylists such as Verhagen and Freundental, Annushka Blommers.. As well as in the traditional theatre circuit Butler presents his work in site specific locations, galleries, museums, clubs or other unconventional spaces… With ease Butler intergrates dance, music, fashion, video, performance and graphic design to a total Image. In “BOB’s Total Dining Concept”‘ (2001-2003), all visitors are received in a virtual resturant in which all senses are stimulated but where no food is served. In “LUKA and the Last Celebrity”, (2003), a constructed celebrity is launched: singer/performer LUKA assisted by performers who are shown as the backing band and life style unit , “The Last Celebrity”.

Butler’s image language is based on the condition that the body can also exist outside the dance and it’s history. The world infiltrates the work in the creation of material. Butler quotes lustily from the history of dance, the body, visual arts, and pop culture. He dives into other body cultures - new age transcendence techniques for “Puppet master ” (2001), Sex shows for ” A Morality Play” (2001) or the restaurant/ consumer service industry in “Bob’s Total Dining Concept” (2001-2003). This way the body in performance finds a natural space amidst other contemporary media. Especially in circles of visual arts, fashion, lifestyle and design, his work is received with enthusiasm- writer and art critic Paul Groot spoke of the work as ” the most exciting thing since Mathew Barney”. In dance circles Butler’s field trips outside the common paths of the dance craft, aren’t always appreciated - he received the title ” the exorcist of dance ” by one critic but by others the ” lifestyle artist of dance ” and “cult director”.

With this project Butler is looking Eastwards, Phoenix looks back at the fairy tale Ballet “L’oiseux de Feu”, (Firebird), of the legendary Ballet Russes of 1910. For the young Igor Stravinsky, the ballet meant his breakthrough as a composer. Stravinsky’s expressive music was accompanied by the choreographer, Fokine, with an energetic ballet for quartet and tableau. Aleksander Golovine and Leon Bakhst delivered a romantic / folkloristic scenography and costume design. The designers flirtations with orientalist moods would soon leave it’s traces in the interior design movements of the Parisian ‘belle monde’. This meeting point of stage image, music and dance meant the Firebird would become one of the most successful ballets of the twentieth century.

A small century and two revolutions later, Butler and a team of ten fellow artists have re-embraced the original work. Created not as a truthful remake of “l’oiseau d’Feu”, Phoenix is a contemporary spectacle of dance, image, light, and sound. Butler invited fashion designers Michel Keuper and Francisco van Benthum, media designer Eric Frymark, and composer Koen Nutters together with N ensemble, to delevop their own visions on the work.

After operating for several years as duo label K/vnB , the designers Michel Keuper and Francisco van Benthum now work for themselves and as guest designers for major european fashion labels. This year they are making a comeback as a duo initiative, being involved in several new projects together. The Berlin based media designer Eric Frymark has been involved with earlier productions of Butler, such as “Puppet Master” and “A Morality play”, (2001), “Hell’s Bunny Club”, (1998), and “El Al”, (1999). The N ensemble (New music ensemble of the N Collective) is, for this project, led and compiled by improviser, composer and bassist Koen Nutters. The ensemble works in the disciplines of composed music and structured improvisation lead by different composers or musical designers. In the Phoenix they developed a structured improvisation with a specific strategy and flexible form to accompany Butler’s piece. The musical material is developed by the entire ensemble during the rehearsals of Phoenix.

The cast of the original ballet has been reduced to a cast of four soloists, all stage personalities. Mariangela Tinelli and Matija Ferlin remain with the company after LUKA, and with the addition of dancers, Jefta Van Dinther (Leine and Roebana) and Guillaume Marie (Jan Fabre), the quartet is complete. Originally concieved as a fictive reconstruction of a constructivist remake, Butler became intrigued by the mythical Firebird who perishes and rises from the ashes. In Phoenix the body and the dance are the central elements, because according to Butler there is no medium so quick, flexible, complex, expressive and multi-faceted as the human body.

“The human body is the base of society, it is the body upon which consumers are consumed ( through play of sexuality, fears and aspirations), it is the body through which stories are told, emotions played and sympathies won and rebelled against. It is both the beginning point and the end point. It has the possibility to be as abstract as it is real”.

Choreography: Martin Butler, Dramaturgy: Paul Derksen, Image: Eric Frymark, Costume: K/vnB, Music: The N ensemble, Koen Nutters (Upright Bass, structure), Bjornar Habbestad (Flute), Matthias Engler (Percussion), Morten j Olsen (Percussion)
Performers:

Mariangela Tinelli
Matija Ferlin
Jefta Van Dinther
Guillaume Marie

Produced by the Rachid Naas, the Liminal Institute and Mediamatic