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Samoan Vision Transforms Mahler's Masterpiece
3 Feb
Summary
- Lemi Ponifasio merges Mahler's song cycle with Pacific chants.
- The performance uses a reduced orchestra of 16 players.
- It offers a sensory appeal rather than a climate change lecture.
Samoan choreographer Lemi Ponifasio has created "Sea Beneath the Skin," an innovative music-theatre piece at Barbican Hall, London. This production ambitiously intertwines Mahler's "Das Lied von der Erde" with Pasifika chants, performed by Theatre of Kiribati and the Britten Sinfonia.
The performance features striking visual elements, including kauri tree pillars and evocative video projections. Singers Sean Panikkar and Fleur Barron deliver Mahler's songs with intense passion, while a chamber ensemble of 16 musicians, in Iain Farrington's arrangement, brings a unique texture to the music.
Described as a work in progress, "Sea Beneath the Skin" eschews a didactic approach to climate change. Instead, it appeals directly to the senses and imagination, offering a distinctive and absorbingly different perspective when compared to other works on the theme.
