Seasick with Darwin: “Origin of Light” in Salzburg
But what choreographer Reginaldo Oliveira lets dance to it does not speak of light and paradisiacal perfection, but of the struggle for existence in all its severity. It pulses and trembles in the dancers, it throbs and trembles, it vibrates like maggots and jellyfish. And again and again and everything squeezes together, ruthlessly trying to somehow stay on top of this competition, to win. Mutation and selection in a hot fever, so to speak.
This is dark, especially since it ends with Cain’s murder of Abel and with the aggressive men who accuse Eve of her fall from grace. She has to pay for that with the black veil that she keeps tearing off her head. A very topical commentary on the situation in Iran, where Charles Darwin, like everywhere else in radical Islamism, has not yet been able to “drop anchor” with his experiences on the HMS Beagle.
Adam and Eve set off
Conductor Gabriel Vengazo and choir director Carl Philipp Fromherz had rehearsed the participants very well: it is rare to see the ensemble and soloists (Laura Incko/Hazel McBain, Mario Lerchenberger, Philipp Schöllhorn) being so motivated, sometimes barefoot and always stretching their arms And wring your hands like in an Old Testament sandal movie.
Here and there man still wants to be like God and not like a natural scientist or a coelacanth, that’s what accounts for his desperation, his outraged cry into the universe, with which this evening closes. The “emergence of light” was rightly applauded, despite the frightening message of plastic waste in the oceans and a humanity that, despite all catastrophes, will always go on, even beyond hell, like in an absurd play by Jean-Paul Sartre.
Already in John Milton’s “Expulsion from Paradise” (1667) Eva and Eva shed a few tears for their nasty fate at the end, but then, determined and fearless, set off into the world that is open to them. It’s not the worst.
Again on November 5th, 22nd and 24th, 2022 in the Felsenreitschule Salzburg, further dates.