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CURRENT PROJECTS > Josep-Maria Balanyà - Hannah Ma, (NO) ROOTS

Hannah Ma, dance, choreography
Josep-Maria Balanyà piano, composition

The music and dance performance (NO) ROOTS with Hannah Ma from Hong Kong / Germany and Josep-Maria Balanyà from Barcelona / Brussels was premiered at the European Academy of Arts (Trier-Germany) in October 2019.
As a choreographer with Chinese and German roots, Hannah Ma is also in demand internationally, as is Josep-Maria Balanyà, an ardent champion of freedom and Catalan culture.
Both improvise on the topic ROOTS and interpret it in their own way: Hannah as a dancer, Balanyà as a pianist and composer. The subject is settled in the realm of tensions between the "ROOTS", which bind, inhibit and/or guarantee a self-chosen freedom.

Marc-Bernhard Gleißner, director of the Municipal Theater of Trier, Germany .

 Performance at the Kunsthalle der Europäische Kunstakademie Trier, Germany October 17, 2019. Premiere.

Yesterday "(No) Roots" by dancer choreographer Hannah Ma and pianist composer Josep-Maria Balanyà in the exhibition "Peter Rübsam - sculpturally seen" - a sonar spatial exploration in search of resonances (acoustic roots) that opened up a question - answer - game in dissonances: Hannah In a world of sound, Ma seeks harmonies that lead to the subjugation of her body or tries to make the world (space / exhibition) symbolically and physically concrete subject. Once liberation has been found in childishness, this freedom becomes regression, schizophrenic repetition, trauma. Meanwhile, Balanyà conjures up a composition of all lifeless things and with surgical precision dissects the unrest from the lifelessness of body, space and musical instruments. It is as if he is struggling with a raging sadness against the silence (the death) of the world. When he finally arrives at the piano, a harmonious home, he loses himself in Strindberg ghostly personalities, who give the "Peter Rübsam" exhibition a demonic omnipresence, the musician being able to hide behind the piano and dancer behind the musician and the breath of the exhibition between Giving death and the hereafter a presence in the here and now: The exhibition Peter Rübsam is not a frame, it is the projection screen of an available art and an impulsive source of ideas for choreography and composition at the same time. Between its character as an object (death of the work of art) and the dynamic symbolic power of the cross, death becomes a place of struggle with life, sadness, lightness, the search for resonance, understanding and non-loneliness. And while these three dynamics of artwork, composition and choreography fight for a common world in which a harmony of these three spheres of sign is possible, the culminating point of all three comes in the acceptance of the vulnerable loneliness of all representation: the artwork becomes the functional sleeping place, the body no longer reacts to the music and no longer dances, leaves it without resonance, while the body, exhausted, deprives itself of meaning and only looks for sleep. An expressive, intellectual and semiotically cleverly conceived performance between exhibition, choreography and composition that touches because it cannot and does not want to be unique and is ready to let all aesthetic signs die.

Marc-Bernhard Gleißner, director of the Municipal Theater of Trier, Germany .

Video

  • The career of the Catalan pianist Josep-Maria Balanyà, born in Barcelona, with more than 40 years on stage, 27 albums recorded and more than 140 works, has taken him from classical music and jazz to his specialisation into the field of improvisation and new contemporary music, experimental music and performance. Internationally recognised, Balanyà is also composer, conductor of improvising orchestras, sound artist, painter and photographer.

    Josep-Maria Balanyà explores the limits of music in his compositions and performances. He is particularly interested in the combination of different arts and the transfer of art into music. In order to expand and deepen his preoccupation with the fine arts and also with the craft material, he attended courses in painting and etching at the European Academy of Fine Arts in Trier (Europäische Kunstakademie Trier) / Germany.

    Under the auspices and organization of the head of the Academy, Dr. Gabriele Lohberg, Balanyà performed for many years a series of interactive concert-performances in the Kunsthalle of the Academy, where fine arts were combined with music and performance. Here he experimented with the interaction between the sounds that arise when working on copper etching plates and the artistic result. He worked with the metal workshop that made or provided sculptures for musical performances. The works are now in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in Tarragona. In a teaching assignment for the students of the European Art Academy, he devoted himself to the music images of contemporary compositions and suggested using them as a basis for further musically interpretable drawings. In performative concerts, he not only made musical instruments sound, but - with electronic amplification and alienation - sculptures (Pierre Wéber), paintings (class Joe Allen), bodies (models from the art academy) and objets trouvés as well.

    As part of these projects, Balanyà even gave a concert of bells in the cathedral of Trier.

    Mainly, his own art production focuses on abstract paintings in which he uses mixed media, but especially acrylic on canvas. His work can be seen in his private gallery in Brussels and in buyers' homes. In addition, he has studied photography and practiced this art since adolescence. His work has followed a process ranging from pictorialism, to direct photography, street photography, macro technique and the study of the human body. He is currently preparing several exhibitions in which he presents a series of impressionist-style photos with movement; this technique gives an abstract pictorial result.

    As for his main field, music, Balanyà studied in Barcelona and Switzerland (Swiss Jazz School and Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Bern), he attended composition workshops, led by Helmut Lachenmann, Walter Zimmermann and Ivan Fedele, and improvisation workshops by Borah Bergman in New York. He carried out intensive research into the sounds of nature in Mexico, working with oceanographers and biologists, including mammalogist Bernardo Villa.

    Most of his works have a significant amount of improvisation. His work as a solo pianist combines the pure sound of the instrument with prepared or manipulated piano techniques. He has presented various multimedia projects for piano, voice, live electronics, video, Butoh dance, as well as percussion pieces on sculptures, sound objects and fine arts tools. He has created sculptures and sound installations that can be played by the public. He has developed his most imaginative actions at the boundary between music and performance, such as a recital in complete darkness at the Sendesaal of Bremen (Germany).

    He has played with first-rate musicians including Claudio Pontiggia, Hans Koch, Joachim Kühn, Franz Hautzinger, Carlos Zingaro, Michiel Borstlap, Walter Quintus, Ksenija Lukic, Hannah Marshall, Das Neue Ensemble Hannover, Americo Rodrigues, Ramón López, Paul Rogers, Mark Sanders, Hannah Ma (dance), Mimi Barthélemy, among others.

    Balanyà has played in festivals and radio programs in many countries in Europe and America. He has received several grants in Germany (Worpswede, Eckernförde, Düsseldorf) and Switzerland (Fondazione Arp). He is currently based in Brussels and in Barcelona.

    The concerts by Balanyà are powerful ​rituals –​ it could be said that he plays the piano with his whole body – during which ​we can perceive the presence of music change into matter.

  • Hannah Ma is a German-Chinese choreographer. She focuses on contemporary rituals and the translation of archaic roots within our society. She was educated at the Vienna Conservatory and the John-Cranko School in Stuttgart and at the University of Hagen (GER).

    Hannah was a scholarship student at Kirov Ballet/St. Petersburg and Hong Kong Ballet. She has won several ballet competitions such as: ÖTR-Contest in Vienna and the International Ballet Competitions in Györ, Hungary and Bologna, Italy.

    She has notably worked for the Théâtre de Friborg (GER), the Museumsquatier (A), the Théâtre de Trèves (DE) and the Shanghai Expo (CHN). Hannah has worked as a freelance dancer all over the world.

    Since the founding of hannahmadance (DE, 2014) and HAN SúN

    Gathering (LU, 2015) his productions have been invited and co-produced by: Théâtre National Luxembourg, (2015/2017), Théâtre d'Esch, Luxembourg (2017), Ruhrfestspiele Recklinghausen / DE (2016), Festival Passages à Metz / FR ( 2017), Theater Trier / DE (2016/2017), German Consulat General / NY (2016), Arpmuseum am Rolandseck / GER (2016), Alter Schlachthof Eupen / BE (2017), Trois CL / LU (2015/2016). Makanda National Arts Festival / ZA (2019/2020), UJ Arts & Culture - Arts Department University Johannesburg / ZA (2018/2020).

    As director of her company, she has been invited to the APAP 2017 / New York conference (work in progress showing “WANDERER”), Swiss Dance Days, Geneva / CH 2017, National Arts Festival, Grahamstown / ZA 2017 and Tanzplattform , Essen / GER 2018 .

    Hannah has won several prizes as a dancer and choreographer such as the “Theatermaske” of the Richard-Wagner Association (DE), the “Brückenpreis Rhinland-Phalatinate” (DE). She was nominated for the German “Engagementpreis” in 2016. Hannah was chosen for TalentLab at the Théâtres de la Ville / Grand Théâtre Luxemburg (Jury: Koen Augustijnen / Les ballets C de la B, José Montalvo / La Maison des Arts de Créteil / France, Peeping Tom, Dance Company / Gabriele Carrizo and Franck Chartier / Belgium, Bernard Baumgarten / TROIS C_L Center de Création Chorégraphique Luxembourgeois, Tom Leick-Burns / Théâtre de la Ville / Luxembourg).

    His work "H.E.R.O.E.S" has been evaluated and published by the German UNESCO Commission and the Berthelsman Stiftung in "Kunst in der Migrationsgesellschaft-Beiträge der Künste für ein zusammenleben in Vielfalt".

    Hannah teaches the 'Speaking Body' method - a method of improvisation she created from contemporary and classical dance, yoga and acting methods. Hannah also studies cultural sciences with an emphasis on philosophy.