VIE Scena Contemporanea Festival - Cheap Lecture and The Cow Piece

Cheap Lecture and The Cow Piece

Jonathan Burrows - Matteo Fargion

11/10/2010 , 21:00
12/10/2010 , 19:00

Created and performed by: Jonathan Burrows and Matteo Fargion

Cheap Lecture was commissioned by Cultureel Centrum Maasmechelen and Dans
in Limburg and first performed at the Cultureel Centrum Maasmechelen.
The Cow Piece is co-produced by Kaaitheater, Brussels

Running time: 60 minutes, no interval

Cheap Lecture is a rhythmic spoken performance set to music. In a rant about empty hands, audience, time, repetition and dancing, Jonathan Burrows and
Matteo Fargion reflect upon and continue the journey begun in their earlier
trilogy of work, Both Sitting Duet (2002), The Quiet Dance (2005) and Speaking
Dance (2006). Veering from the philosophical to the humorous and back, Cheap
Lecture gently reveals how the two artists work while drawing us into ever more
unexpected digressions. It is accompanied by The Cow Piece, a chaotic meditation upon dance, music and mortality. Cheap Lecture was selected for the 2009 'best ofthe year' Het Theaterfestival in Brussels.

'Jonathan Burrows and Matteo Fargion have created a performance that dances in your head. It's superb'De Morgen, Belgium, on Cheap Lecture

'…for the past several years their affirmative vote has generated startling moments when they and their audiences exclaim, 'Ooh!', and has hurled lightning bolts of sudden realization toward that which does not take place, e.g. virtuosic dance.'Süddeutsche Zeitung, Munich

'Cheap Lecture proves to be a manifesto on the duo’s work and their relationship with the public, framed in a format of an incongruous, impossible, absurdly comical waterfall of rhythmicalized thoughts.'
Corpus Kunstkritiek, Belgium

www.jonathanburrows.info

Jonathan Burrows - Matteo Fargion

Jonathan Burrows
He was born in 1960. He danced with the Royal Ballet for 13 years,
rising to the rank of soloist, before leaving in 1991 to pursue his own choreography.
After touring with his own company for some years he decided in 2001 to concentrate on one to one collaborations with other artists, who would share the conception, making, performing and administrating of the work. His first collaboration was Weak Dance Strong Questions (2001), made with the theatre maker and performer Jan Ritsema, which toured to 14 countries. This was followed by a series of duets with Matteo Fargion, beginning in 2002 with Both Sitting Duet, followed by The Quiet Dance (2005), Speaking Dance (2006). Cheap Lecture (2009) and The Cow Piece (2009). The two men have now given over 200 performances across 28 countries. Both Sitting Duet won a 2004 New York Dance and Performance 'Bessie' Award, and Cheap Lecture was chosen for the 2009 Het
Theaterfestival in Belgium. In 2010 he also made Dogheart, with the dancer Chrysa Parkinson. Other high profile commissions include Sylvie Guillem and William Forsythe’s Ballet Frankfurt, and in 2008 he was Associate Director for Peter Handke's The Hour We Knew Nothing Of Each Other at the National Theatre, London. Burrows has been an Associate Artist at Kunstencentrum Vooruit in Gent, Belgium (1992- 2002), London’s South Bank Centre (1998/9) and Kaaitheater Brussels (2008 -). In 2002 he received an award from the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts In New York, in recognition for his ongoing contributions to contemporary dance. He is a visiting member of faculty at P.A.R.T.S, and is also Visiting Professor at Royal Holloway, University Of London, Hamburg University and the Free University Berlin. He holds an
Honorary Doctorate from Royal Holloway University of London. 'A Choreographer's
Handbook' (2010) by Jonathan Burrows is available from Routledge Publishing.
www.jonathanburrows.info

Matteo Fargion
He was born in Milan 1961. He studied composition with the composers
Kevin Volans and Howard Skempton, and after graduation played bass guitar for a time in the rock band headed by Chris Newman, a formative experience of live performance.
His interest in contemporary dance began after seeing the Merce Cunningham Dance Company perform at the Sadler's Wells Theatre in London, returning the following evening to give flowers to the dancers. This experience encouraged him to apply for the International Course for Choreographers and Composers, where he first wrote music for dance, and through which he met the choreographer Jonathan Burrows with whom he has collaborated for more than twenty years. Since 2002 Burrows and Fargion have made a series of five duets conceived, choreographed, composed, administrated and
performed together. Both Sitting Duet (2002), The Quiet Dance (2005), Speaking Dance (2006), Cheap Lecture (2009) and The Cow Piece (2009) are still touring, and the two men
have now given over 200 performances across 28 countries. Both Sitting Duet won a 2004 New York Dance and Performance 'Bessie' Award, and Cheap Lecture was chosen for the 2009 Het Theaterfestival in Belgium. Fargion has written music for other choreographers including Lynda Gaudreau and Russell Maliphant. Most importantly over the past fifteen years he has developed a strong collaboration with the leading English choreographer Siobhan Davies, writing music for some of her most significant recent work including The Art of Touch (1995), Two Quartets (2007) and Minutes for the Collection
(2009), in which he also performed. Fargion writes also for theatre, particularly in
Germany, where he has worked over a number of years at the Residenz Theater Munich,
and at the Berlin Schaubühne under the direction of Thomas Ostermeier, for whom he wrote music for the prize winning 2004 production of Jon Fosse's new play The Girl on the Sofa. Matteo is a visiting member of faculty at P.A.R.T.S.

The show

Programme