Interview Cristian Vogel on http://www.veryverymuch.com/
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(quotes on working with Gilles Jobin/contemporary dance)
"(…) this research gets expressed in my work for contemporary dance with Gilles Jobin, we’ve made six pieces and we’re working on a seventh creation, so this is since 2003. And actually I’ve composed more music for those pieces than I’ve ever released [as records], the duration of music is actually more. It’s now the major part of my body of work, the work I’ve done for those dance pieces.
(…) [talking about dance being performed live] You know that if you want the full experience you have to go and see the [contemporary dance] piece, and you know you get this direct connection, and yes, the audience is very respectful, they’re really quiet, they’re comfortable, they get a nice comfortable seat and they listen, they really listen; it’s a very luxurious position to be in for a composer. And they’ve got something to look at, so it’s a bit easier for them to spend an hour listening to some quite difficult music, because there’s this amazing thing going on in front of them, they’ve got this very visceral thing, bodies in front of you, sweat… it’s great.
That’s the thing, dance is really good. But I am ready to put the soundtracks out on CD. I’ve done one, I may do another because sometimes I feel that sometimes the long-term followers of my work may really enjoy hearing it and they may not get the chance because they’d need to travel to see the piece and might not be able to afford that, so I’d like to figure out how to… I’d probably like to release some more of those soundtracks – probably with Sub Rosa, they’re going to, well, they’ve agreed that they’re interested in releasing the Black Swan soundtrack. So yeah, that’s a big part of it all, that takes up half of my year in fact, the composing. The other projects we’ve been talking about, the gigs: that’s a very small amount of my attention and time, most of it is composing (…)".
" (…) I was working with Gilles Jobin in contemporary dance. This was the first time I was exposed to a situation where there was no industry around. When I was composing I wasn’t thinking about who’s going to play this on the radio or if its going to be able to be played by DJs – because when you’re in the studio creating this, sadly, is massively influential in the actual process when you’re creating. You’re making a sound and it’s very hard not to think “hey will they be able to play this on the radio?” or “is a DJ going to be able to mix this beat even though it’s really complicated?” so you end up stripping everything out so the DJ can mix it, not because you want to make that decision, but because you’re making a decision for the end user somewhere, or for the industry, to make it more palatable.
So when I was working in contemporary dance, this was just not an issue, it would be completely the wrong way to work, it was only about the aesthetic that is being explored and built in the dance piece – that is what defines right and wrong, that’s what says this is the direction you should be going with that music, with this piece at this point you need to be thinking about a new language that you’re constructing with the choreographer in the context of the dance piece and nothing else. Because the contemporary dance pieces of Gilles Jobin, he has them already funded by the theatres that are going to put them on – you already have the bums on seats if you like, so you don’t have to worry about something that will keep the people in the theatre, it doesn’t matter even if they leave halfway through, as long as you’re true to the creation and the process.
So I started to have these unique opportunities in creation, and I began to think, woah – for years I’ve been restricted by a thought that I’m only making this for… it’s limited by where it’s going to come out, which label, whether the label’s gonna like it, whether the industry’s going to be able to distribute it – but [now] who cares?! Now I’m not restricted by that any more and it’s a luxurious position to be in. So where I’m trying to aim for is to have that but with my studio recordings and studio work – because I really value studio creation, I think it’s one of the most important aspects of modern music and I think that this new emphasis on [the idea that] musicians have to make their living through concerts and give their records away for free – this idea where everyone seems ok with that and says “oh yeah that’s the way it’s going to be!”, you can talk to a taxi diver and they’ll tell you this, it’s their theory of how it’s going to be… (...)"
to read full interview http://articles.veryverymuch.com/post/1556384171/cristian-vogel-part-1-of-2
BLACK SWAN extract from gilles jobin on Vimeo.
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