creation : 12.11.2015 at Théâtre de Hautepierre à Strasbourg, FR
cinema screening with live music, based on René Clair’s film, Entr’acte, 1924
for 6 percussions and real time electronics
state command of Percussions de Strasbourg to Javier Elipe
duration : 20′
Entr’acte, a Dadaist, pre-surrealist short film, structured by a series of different cinematic tableaux (without apparent connection), describes a series of absurd situations, musically structured by sound tableaux. With original music by Erik Satie, this new musical adaptation presents itself as a new, more up-to-date look, which will reinterpret the problems of the 1920s, adapted to our thinking today. Thanks to new technologies and the possibilities offered by digital tools, we can today simulate the editing techniques and special effects used in film, in order to create new relationships between music and film.
The score will take advantage of the creative power of the film, by musically reinterpreting the clash of opposites or visual dissonances present in the film.
The play of convergences and divergences between the musical and visual planes can be summed up as a game of extremes: the relationship between the association of cinematic figures on the one hand, and the transgression of this correspondence on the other. This “sound dissonance”, both in terms of timbre and narrative, will have its equivalent in the non-conformist and provocative style of the film, allowing a new, more daring and open imagination.
Aided by the multiple possibilities offered by percussion instruments, the different sound tableaux will explore the different types of interactions as well as the play of coincidences, resonances, attacks… The use of electronics will allow to widen the range of percussion timbres, but also to enrich and transform these timbres, playing at the same time with the surrealist and delirious poetics present in the film.
Javier ELIPE GIMENO