Performance | On a String: A Performance

Imagine you are a tiny being and suddenly find yourself standing on a string. First of all you’ll try to find your equilibrium, to balance to survive. A string gives you two options: to move forward or to go backward. It’s as linear as time appears. Struggling between two options, past and future, equilibrium and falling, you are caught in one essential moment: the present.

Imagine you are present at a point of the invention of music, when one sound suddenly becomes essential to all others: the sound of the A string. You hear all sounds being born, crackling and grinding, resonating and charming, all of them responding to the first, the major: the A string.

We live in this present together, all of us on life’s string. We never know if our string will snap, if it’s long, durable or short and brittle. We never know where our personal string will bring us to. But in the way a sound responds to another, forming music, melodious or discordant, all of us are tied together in one big moment: the present. This we know.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS:

Musician and performance artist Therese Cafasso lives and works in Vienna and is also active in film and street art. She studied German literature at the University of Vienna and Karlsruhe and music at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, majoring in piano. Next to violin and a number of other instruments, the piano is essential for her musical productions, her styles of playing ranging from baroque to contemporary music with a special focus on prepared piano. Her stage work combines musical improvisation, visual art, theatrical performance and Mask Theater. Her aim is to find new ways of storytelling, transferring atmosphere and inviting the audience to intimately experience music and theater with all their senses.

Born in Kansas, dancer, musician and performer Max Shire studied at the Carl-Orff-Institute, the University of Mozarteum Salzburg and the Escola superior de Musica de Catalunya. He has been involved in several dance and music projects such as “Nomad Souvenir”, “Puzzle People” and “Doweil”, and performed at the “Attersee Vibes” music festival in Kammer am Attersee. As a viola player, he has been playing in several different orchestras such as the Orchestra of the Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya, the Salzburg Regional Youth Orchestra, the University Orchestra Salzburg and the Vienna Academic Symphony Orchestra.

Markus Kupferblum is an Austrian theatre and opera director, author and clown. He founded the opera company "Totales Theater" in Vienna and is an expert in Commedia dell'arte and mask theatre. He has directed and shown productions in France, Austria, Germany, England, Spain, Belgium, the United States, Korea, Armenia, Lebanon, Israel, Russia, Peru, Bolivia, Iran, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Switzerland, and Italy. He was awarded the "1. Prix de l'Humour" at the Avignon Festival in 1993 and is known for working across the genres of opera, circus, theatre, and film. In 2007 he received the "Nestroy Award" for the best German-speaking fringe production for his play "The Abandoned Dido". He has been teaching at the University of Vienna, the University of Applied Arts, Vienna, the Max Reinhardt Seminar, the Bavarian Acting Academy "August Everding", Munich and the University of Michigan. He founded the "European Theatre Day of Tolerance" in 2012 and the Music Theatre Ensemble "Schlüterwerke" in Vienna in 2013. In the same year, he published his book "The birth of curiosity" centering on popular theatre and the Commedia dell'Arte.