by Christian Hildebrandt
“Rye bread!”, my companion said as we entered the dark brown yet glowing big hall in The Royal Playhouse. It was wildly raining outside this evening, but inside we met an atmosphere which was warm and cosy. Both in- and outside the Royal Playhouse definately is one of the most outstanding buildings in Copenhagen. We were heading for the world premiere June 16 on Simon Christensen and Bill Morrison’s art film work ‘TRIBUTES - Pulse’, and that evening we experienced this house in it’s natural born role as art airport terminal for creative travelling on first class.
This specific evening when the rain outside actually made the sky descending to the earth we inside the hall made it to the skies in the tale of Bill Morrison’s art film, engined by Simon Christensen’s pulsating music in the veritable gesamtkunswerk ‘TRIBUTES - Pulse’.
The piece which was actually four pieces - we hardly felt the transitions between the different parts - has grown out of a so called open source artistic collaboration. The result nevertheless showed a deeply integrated sound and video performance giving no impression of a decentralized creative proces. Every detail seemed to be born out of the same spirit. Despite the complex structure one tend to call the piece ‘organic’ rather than ‘structured’. A quality which I suppose is part of the explanation why more than one hour uninterrupted contemporary musical input actually flies away. I will not say that I clearly understood the work’s intention to be a requiem for the twentieth century. But the filmic progression truly showed beautifully fragmented memory traces from the modern culture, and perhaps we in the quite physical music could hear a contemporary highly alive comment on the descending modernism.
Probably this live performance stated a once-in-a-lifetime experience of ‘TRIBUTES - Pulse’ in the big concert hall. But you can still take another and just as luxurious travel into this monolithic yet floating piece. A unique new construction build by Montana is situated next to the Royal Playhouse, and inside it you can experience 'TRIBUTES - Pulse' in a private sound- and video session featuring the newest state of the art 7.1 surround sound. The Montana box with 'TRIBUTES - Pulse' can be visited until September 25.