Salz   2025

Front left on stage a bird-like sculptur, with two small loud speakers as eyes. On the right side, a bit more in the back, the Korean barrel drum buk. In the middle, at the end, two chairs.

The buk drummer comes on stage in sports dress. She sits down behind the drum and starts to play short, complex rhythms, followed by a long pause.

Very slowly the singer enters the stage, wearing a light, almost white costume with a very long train. This train is carried by a man and a woman. They seem to serve the singer.

The singer has now reached the middle of the stage and moves forward, towards the audience, until she reaches the very edge of the stage. The man and the woman smooth out the long train, and then sit down on the two chairs in the back.

The buk player meanwhile continued her pattern of rhythms and pauses. She resembles a person sitting in a car, as an own isolated space, only concentrated on the street in front of her and the driving.

After the singer has reached her position, and her escort has sit down on the chairs, sounds come out of the loud speakers around the audience. It resembles different environmental sounds, mixed or following each other, and a nervous high noisy sound which reminds of small stings, but far, like in a cloud.

The singer starts to sing, and also to speak. What she sings appears to be fragments from different heritage, in Korean language. Sometimes very soft, like for herself, sometimes like shouting messages to others. It seems that also she is in her own world, separated from the audience like being behind a pane.

Suddenly she claps her hands and turns right, to the bird-like sculpture. Also the buk player, who exactly in the same moment hit the drum's edge with a high pitched strike, freezes and looks towards the sculpture.

Some whispering can be heard from the loud speaker eyes of the sculpture, but it is impossible to perceive more than short scraps, and the language seems not to be Korean. This lasts for a short while; then it suddenly stops. Singer and drummer return to their previous habits, and also the atmospheric sounds arise again.

In the next of these parts or phases, which all end with the hand claps, the freeze, and the sculpture's whispering, the woman in the back of the stage stands up, slowly approaches the singer from behind, and opens her hair. The singer does not take any notice of it. The woman sits down again; she did her job. Two parts later, the man stands up. He wears a weight vest above his clothes. Also he approaches slowly from behind, takes off the vest and puts it on the singer's shoulders. She feels the weight, but again does not take any notice of it. The man sits down again; he did his job.

The music meanwhile turned to different directions. The environmental sound and the stings changes and appear in different combinations; some constellations recur but always something new shows up. One layer gets more obvious in the long run: The buk rhythms on stage are somehow getting an answer in the loud speakers, with a sound like a large wooden drum. As to the singer, she seems to experience quite different states and phases. Sometimes she is calm, sometimes very excited. Sometimes she is introverted, sometimes extroverted and addressing. Sometimes she shouts, sometimes she smiles. In which reality is she, what is she seeing, while we see her?

In the last cycle both, man and woman, stand up and together approach the singer from behind. They take the long train and very slowly put the fabric above her head. The inner side of the costume ecloses to be black, so that the singer step by step is transfigured to a black sculpture, by the cautious activity of man and woman. Although completely covered this way, she continues with her voice expressions. After having done their job, man an woman sit down once more.

The hand clapping, following in a later moment, is now not audible any more, as there is fabric between the singer's hands. The buk player hits the drum, but also without any sound. The small loud speakers of the sculpture are without whispering now; only one single, broken, wooden sound comes out of them. The light gets very bright for a short moment, to show this last image, then all gets dark.

↗Score (will also follow ...)
↗Program book of first performances (German)

Video of performance in Hannover 22 November 2025 ↗direct link

Video of performance in Bremen 29 November 2025 ↗direct link

Trailer about Pansori Prisms project November 2025 ↗direct link