The People United

American choreographer Richard Siegal and his Ballet of Difference join forces with pianist Igor Levit for a multidisciplinary evening of dance and live music. An evening that celebrates the freedom of the individual, the spirit of resistance of an entire society and the fight for a fairer future. Siegal and Levit have placed Frederic Rzewski's composition "The People United Will Never Be Defeated" at the centre of the evening. It is the sonorous vision of world revolution. Perhaps the most beautiful that music has ever produced. Art and commitment, salon and everyday culture, old and new - all classes and milieus are given a voice in the solidary polyphony of the American Frederic Rzewski.
Ludicrous keyboard acrobatics meet all sorts of avant-garde flavours, sprinklings of jazz and pop mingle with legendary protest songs. The approximately one-hour cycle of variations on the snappy Chilean revolutionary anthem "El pueblo unido" from 1976 is not just a pianistic tour de force. Igor Levit is convinced that it also forces listeners to take a stand.
In the Cologne performances, Rzewski's composition will be played by Igor Levit's master student Mert Yalniz.

A production of ecotopia dance productions and Bregenzer Frühling. Creative producer Richard Siegal and Igor Levit. A co-operation with Schauspiel Köln. Supported by Kunststiftung NRW.

Music: »36 Piano Variations on The People United Will Never Be Defeated« von Frederic Rzewski, Sergio Ortega and Eduardo Carrasco.
©With kind permission by Coda Ediciones Musicales / Ediciones Quiroga (Madrid) and Zen-On Music Company (Tokyo)