沈黙の聖母 Our Lady of Silence (Notre-Dame du silence) is a choral performance in several languages.
沈黙の聖母 (Notre-Dame du silence) is a choral performance in several languages, inserted in a video installation, inspired by a text from The Book of Disquiet by the Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa. This polyphonic composition blending poetry, choreography and vocal expression, strives to turn the deep silence unto limitless poetry, both heard and felt.
Make silence heard and show the infinite poetry on a blank page.
A silence filled with music and individual and collective memories. A silence that precedes life wanders beyond death. A silence that gives birth to all sounds and where all sounds die. It’s not a void that needs to be filled but an ongoing energy moving through space and time.
A presence feeding on absence. In our post-pandemic cities, where bodies deserted, memories still drift. They dance, they sing, and they give everything a brand new meaning. We simply need to listen…
CREDITS
Concept, staging, and musical direction: Marcus Borja (2020 winner of Villa Kujoyama)
Text: Bernardo Soares (Fernando Pessoa’s heteronym)
With: Rumi Matsui (soprano), Nao Tanida (alto), Masanao Kakuchi (tenor), Koji Toriyama (baritone), and 25 members of Youth Theater Japan-Kansai
Partners: YTJ, Villa Kujoyama, Institut Français du japon Kansai, 京都駅
Text projected in Japanese with French subtitles.
