When I approached Anne Marthe Dyvi for a cooperation, the comission was a piece about moving birds. My idea was inspired from large groups of birds in the autumn sky when they start going south.
Their movements, almost vertiginous to watch, would go with an orchestra only moving, not playing, but moving in a performed choreography related to the musicians regular music-making movements.
I wanted to include physical movements in the Meditations on Listening concert and this piece could be way for us to do that in a manner that would be okay for the musicians. Initially I wanted to not conduct the piece, but I decided to do it for practical and artistic reasons.
Our working method was that I would choose material out of the videos Anne Marthe sent me.
During the process we had regular conversations.
We would talk, she would make something and send it to me. I would digest it, think and then we would meet and talk more. She would send me more material etc.
During the process I saw that the videos Anne Marthe sent me, went in another direction than moving birds.
This realization was an important point in our cooperation.
I chose to almost completely let go of the bird idea and to go with something else we found together, visible in Anne Marthe's works.
I am very happy about that decition.
I diceded to keep the video with the eagle as a pointer to the initial idea.
The eagle is also an expression of conducting. The overview, the focused attention and the arms outstreched.
Anne Marthe's video art contains a lot of momentum, music, rythm and timing, in addition to beautiful use of colour. The techniques she uses make the screen feel tactile.
All these are for me musical and listening qualities.
