RSRB

RSPB is a performance created from the Robert Schumann (1810-56)’s Kreisleriana and Roland Barthes (1915-80)’s text Rasch.

The Kreisleriana is opus 16 in Schumman’s work. These eight piano movements were composed for Clara Wierck in 1838. Schumann then wrote to Clara: “I have finished a series of new movements. You [Clara] and your thoughts completely dominate them […]. Play my Kreisleriana sometimes! In some of the movements, there is a very wild love, your life and mine and many of your looks”.

Rasch is the title of an article written in the 1970s, by Barthes, about Schumann’s Kreisleriana. The article appears alongside some others in a work entitled L’obvie et l’obtus. Barthes tracks down Schumann’s body in his work and gives the Kreisleriana a completely choreographic interpretation.

This performance connects the dancer Massimo Fusco, the pianists Sandrine Le Grand and Jérôme Granjon, and the choreographer (who is also the narrator for the piece) Dominique Brun. “By entering into the Barthesian verb, un chemin d’écoute opens up which leads into the nerves of Schumann’s score by means of the body”. David Christoffel.