In the series „Leise schäumt das Jetzt“, Britta Lieberknecht explores improvisation as performance in various formations. The encounter of dance and music is crafted into a poetic work with ever-new facets—100% improvised before the eyes and ears of the audience.

„Leise schäumt das Jetzt #2“ brings together musicians Hannah Weirich, known as a violinist of innovative compositions in contemporary music with the Ensemble Musikfabrik, and Eva Zöllner, a globally active accordionist who plays her instrument with an exceptionally rich sound spectrum. They meet the two dancers Neues Barcons Roca and Britta Lieberknecht. Neues Barcons Roca is known in Cologne as an outstanding soloist and ensemble member with Britta Lieberknecht and Mouvoir. Britta Lieberknecht, experimental in her long history with the avant-garde of dance performance, again dedicates herself to the synergy of sound and movement with this team. An encounter of exuberant confrontation to softly foaming, delicate intimacy. Garlef Keßler bathes the interactions in colorfully iridescent spaces — also improvised.

Hannah Weirich studied violin with Prof. Agostini at the Hochschule für Musik Stuttgart and in masterclasses with Gulli, Neamann, Ozim, and Zsigmondy a.o. As a soloist, she has performed with the Nuremberg Symphony, the Kraków State Philharmonic, and the Hagen Philharmonic Orchestra. She collaborates with ensembles such as Resonanz, ascolta, ensemble plus, Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart, Contemporaneartensemble (Florence), and the jazz group Shreefpunk. Since 2005 she has been a member of Ensemble Musikfabrik.

Eva Zöllner studied accordion at the HfMT Cologne and at the Royal Danish Conservatory in Copenhagen. She collaborates with composers around the world. Her work ranges from experimental solo performances and interdisciplinary projects (a.o. solistic collaboration with Marina Abramović) to collaborations with renowned ensembles such as musikFabrik, HR-Sinfonieorchester, Ensemble Modern, NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester, and the Royal Opera House Covent Garden.

Neus Barcons Roca trained in contemporary dance at EESA/CPD of the Institute of Theatre Barcelona and SEAD Salzburg. She choreographs and teaches, together with Matevz Dobaj, based in Brussels. In Cologne, she danced as an ensemble member and soloist with Britta Lieberknecht and Mouvoir/Stephanie Thiersch.

Britta Lieberknecht has been creating interdisciplinary performances since 1979. After training in NYC with various pioneers of postmodern dance and at the Merce Cunningham School, she became a member of PLAN K (Fréderic Flamand) in Brussels. Since 1992, she has produced her work in Cologne and specializes in the interaction of dance and music. Through improvisation she continues to develop as a dancer of an older generation.

Quietly foams the Now
At the first event of the Kultursommer, music and dance meet on equal footing

The Kultursommer Bergisch Gladbach began with a spectacular tension arc. Four women artists – two dancers who also used their voices and two highly virtuosic instrumentalists – offered the audience in Britta Lieberknecht’s dance studio a one-hour insight into their workshop. “Now we’re available for half an hour, then we’ll continue working,” Lieberknecht said after the long final applause, underscoring the promise to let the audience participate in the process of creation… for here two expressive dancers improvised, meeting two musicians who had just as much to say. Music and dance met on equal terms. Accordion and violin began while the dancers were still sitting in a circle on simple wooden chairs with the curious audience. From scraps of single notes, tiny motifs, rhythms tapped with fingers, and short foot-stamping, a rhythm briefly developed that recalled a tango. Not, as one might expect, introduced by the accordion, but by the violin, which was scratched and tapped as if it were a small percussion instrument. The episode passed, the musicians sat on chairs, rose occasionally, moved a bit, and thus not only communicated through sounds. Then the two dancers joined. They moved together at first, then brought in the instrumentalists and began to sing. With long tones they built dramatic arches, suddenly interrupted by short, vital movements. The audience could understand the correspondence even without words – it was about struggle, conflict, reconciliation, tension, joy. At some point, it ended. A work of art that existed exactly once and has now passed. “Quietly foams the Present #2” is what Britta Lieberknecht called the work. The improvisation here is about letting the stories happen. Both in movement and in music, in sound, there are always touchpoints. The art lies in allowing oneself to engage with others unconditionally. With Lieberknecht dances expressively and aesthetically Neus Barcons Roca. The violin is played by Hannah Weirich, the accordion by Eva Zöllner. All four are superbly trained and recognized luminaries in their fields. They engage with contemporary art and manage to draw spectators and listeners, almost breathless, into the action. The piece premieres in Köln, on December 13–14, at the Alte Feuerwache.

In her dance performance “Quietly the Now Foams,” Britta Lieberknecht engages in a risky improvisation game
Is it possible to perform on stage only dance movements that are solely bound to the moment? Dance that is spontaneous, authentic, and truthful, while also having a playful component? That sounds like an ambitious concept.
Britta Lieberknecht has always sought to explore the formal boundaries of dance in her productions. Thus she now arrives at a configuration of dance and music in “Quietly the Now Froths,” where all participants physically respond to one another.
She now takes up this approach in the second part with musicians Hannah Weirich (violin) and Eva Zöllner (accordion) in dialogue with herself as a dancer and her colleague Neus Barcons Roca in the dance hall of the Alte Feuerwache.
The breathing accordion and the bow gliding over the strings create sounds on the way to the sound itself. As impulsively as the musicians experiment, the dancers also play with movement sequences. The communication between the women becomes increasingly intense. It also includes screaming at times or producing protesting scratching sounds from the violin. In duo and quartet, the women meet.
Everything should be owed to the moment. Freshness is the lure of the performance. It seems successful in those moments when something new and unexpected happens. There, where she falls into the repertoire of gesture, where comforting embraces or narrative approaches arise, she loses her persuasive power.
It is a risky game with improvisation, enormously demanding, unless she wants to end up in the emptiness with familiar movement patterns. Some conventions sneak into the performance. Yet a lot of inspiring things emerge from this boldly developed experiment by Britta Lieberknecht.