William Forsythe: Birds, Bonn 1964

The choreographer William Forsythe developed the acoustic performance Birds, Bonn 1964 for the Bungalow Germania, the German pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2014, by Alex Lehnerer and Savvas Ciriacidis. The singing of the birds, which lived in the park of the Chancellor’s Residence in Bonn, has been sung live by the Italian bird-song singers (Imitatori canto deli uccelli) at the opening of the 14th International Architecture Biennale – la Biennale di Venezia 2014.

William Forsythe’s Birds, Bonn 1964 is a production for Bungalow Germania in the German Pavilion for the 14th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia and for Performing Architecture, a series of events by the Goethe-Institut.

Chioccolatori: Daniela Cattivelli, Claudio Pin, Camillo Prosdocimo, Giorgio Rizzo, Ettore Scabin. Sound: Niels Lanz. Producer: Julian Gabriel Richter. Compositor: Daniela Cattivelli.

William Forsythe: Birds, Bonn 1964. German Pavilion, Giardini delle Biennale, Venice (Italy), June 6, 2014.

PS: Many thanks to Daniela Cattivelli and Giorgio Rizzo!

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Official info text:
William Forsythe will develop a new work within the scope of the German Pavilion 2014. In close collaboration with the Pavilion comissioners Alex Lehnerer and Savvas Ciriacidis he will create a sound environment of bird calls to be performed by Venetian and German bird spotters. Reaching back to the original “Kanzler Bungalow” situated in the park next to Palaise Schaumburg in Bonn not far from the river Rhine, the piece creates ephemeral links to the original place of the bungalow, its time and the surrounding environment, which is intrinsically tied to the collective memory of the building and its representative function.

William Forsythe is recognized as one of the world’s foremost choreographers. His work is acknowledged for reorienting the practice of ballet from its identification with classical repertoire to a dynamic 21st century art form. Forsythes deep interest in the fundamental principles of organisation has led him to produce a wide range of projects including Installations, Films, and Web based knowledge creation.

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