HIDDEN MATTER

  "On the occasion of the special exhibition Picasso - El Greco, the Kunstmuseum Basel will present a multimedia dance performance in cooperation with the ballet ensemble of the Theater Basel in autumn 2022: Hidden Matter can be seen as a world premiere on six evenings in September at Kunstmuseum Basel | Hauptbau.
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  The new production was developed jointly by the French-American choreographer Rachelle Scott and the British-Indian video and digital artist Permi Jhooti. It combines dance, digital imagery, architecture and music to create an expressive and expansive piece inspired by El Greco's and Picasso's oeuvres. The main building of the Kunstmuseum will become an open stage: dancing will take place in the foyer of the first floor, and parts of the production will also be visible from the large inner courtyard.
 
  Hidden Matter is not a conventional ballet that the audience experiences "frontally". The audience is introduced in the courtyard by a projection on the façade of the main building. Dancers then accompany the visitors to the first floor. There they enter a space in which sounds, bodies, static architecture, moving images and physical and virtual realities intermingle. A dancer acts as a "narrator" who guides the audience through the evening as El Greco's alter ego.
 
  The new work by Rachelle Scott and Permi Jhooti combines complex technical knowledge of virtual image worlds, philosophical reflections on time and space and a choreographic language. It is the first collaboration between the two artists, both of whom are interested in the expressive power and potential of movement. Scott focuses on the dancing bodies and the connection between emotion and expression. Jhooti records the dancers with a highly sensitive camera and develops ambiguous images of pixels from the collected data. These are projected onto the windows facing the inner courtyard and sometimes act as an echo of danced passages, sometimes as an anticipation of the dancers' future movements."
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Text from Kunstmuseum Basel
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Location
Kunstmuseum Basel, Main Building Foyer 1st Floor
 
Concept
Rachelle Scott (Choreography), Permi Jhooti (Visual Art / Video)
 
Dancers
Mikaela Kelly
Celia Sandoya
Kelly Keesing
Max Zachrisson
Elias Boersma
Dayne Florence
 
Light
Luke Marian
 
Video and Photo
Rubén Darío Bañol Herrera
 
Music Editing
Rachelle Scott 
 
Music Mastering
Beat Frei