Iris ter Schiphorst
Vergiß Salome! (2012)
for the WP on NDR 2012
Vergiss Salome presents a psychogrammatic portrait of female desire, intentionally distancing the work from the traditional, male-dominated perspective of the Salome figure. Composed as a commissioned work for sopranoSarah Maria Sun, the piece merges highly virtuosic singing with theatrical performance.
The sonic foundation is a recorded track featuring the voice of Almut Zilcher. The text, written by Karin Spielhofer, employs the metaphor of a lonely ice skater and serves as a relentless "temporal framework" for the live singer. Following a line marked on the floor, she must coordinate her vocal actions with a precise choreography of movements and the shedding of garments.
In the multi-layered encounter between the reciting voice on tape and the reacting live soprano, a field of tension arises that makes the process of searching and conjuring audible. A central moment of silence—a grand pause at the line "As if everything were starting from the beginning"—opens a space for the fleeting utopia of a fresh start before the work hurtles relentlessly toward its conclusion.
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