Courants
with
Michel Doneda - saxophone
Willehad Grafenhorst - doublebass-balalaika / elektronics / video
Fine Kwiatkowski - dance
Le Quan Ninh - percussion
in
Ulrichsberg (A) 2007
Ulrichsberger Kaleidophon
Madrid (E) 2008
XI. Festival Internacional de Improvisación Hurta Cordel
Le Quan Ninh (musician) about Courants.
translated by Petra Lang.
"These are not only video-sequences, deluging the surfaces from which they appear. These are not only intermittent bunches of rays, like chasms, to which the artists hold on to. Like in a natural living space. Two video-projectors, interfering one another, create luminous conditions, rhytmical, there, where the concrete becomes abstract. Where the surfaces become voluminous fields, without forcing music or choreography. Marriage of the fixed time, fixed in light – and in the improvisation. Courants question the simultanity of biological and natural time, of permanence and the organical, of sequence and necessity. Between the determined and the moving, between the predictable and the reference to the not predictable, Courants are an audio-visual ensemble, in which every artist brings with him/her the required ingredient for the unbalance."
press
Iridescent Realtime-Phoneticum
Ulrichsberger Kaleidophon, April 27th – 29th
Summit 4: Another opiate of the senses: the performance by the ensemble COURANTS which grouped itself, mutating permanently, around the pillars Fine Kwiatkowski (dance) and Willehad Grafenhorst (Bass-Balalaika, visuals). Their partners this time were the french musicians Li Quan Ninh and Michel Doneda. Two excellent musicians with some experience in the field and with similar projects. A stroke of luck this multimedia network. Dancer, visual director and musicians worked with utmost sensitivity and readiness for communication and therefore found a very unique expression. And thus, all artists devoted all their awareness to the continuous streaming and condensing process in the room. A transient, beautiful flow.
(by Hannes Schweiger, frei Stil magazine, Wels)
Swing and Gloomy Videos
Second was the german-french quartet COURANTS with a dark multimedia peformance. Brilliant video-installations illustrating gloomy, layered soundpiles. The picture of a world between hectic activity and emotional icecold torpor is shown. Not even the flexible androgynous dancer Fine Kwiatkowski finds a way out. Enthusiastic applause, heavy stuff.
(by Christoph Haunschmid, Oberoestereichische Nachrichten)
