Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Sasha Waltz doesn’t scare easily. A previous London visit saw her grappling with the fiendish polyrhythms of Igor Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. Now, 10 years later, Waltz and her company have brought their take on Terry Riley’s minimalist milestone In C. The performances form part of the South Bank Centre’s Multitudes season which juxtaposes orchestral music with other art forms to surprising and occasionally thrilling effect.Premiered in 1964, In C consists of 53 short musical motifs which are played in order by the musicians. Riley never specified instrumentation or ensemble size, allowing individual players to repeat or riff on the various segments until the piece finally draws to a close roughly an hour after it begins. The edgy interaction between solo musicians has an unmistakable jazz vibe and demands keen ears and rapid responses. Twelve players from the London Sinfonietta, seated stage right in a narrow block, were more than equal to Riley‘s “guided improvisation” and seemed unfazed by the 11 dancers occasionally straying into the orchestral space.Riley’s piece has an obvious appeal as a template for the contemporary dancemaker and Waltz is far from the first to be seduced by its possibilities. Back in 1970, Carlos Carvajal choreographed a version for San Francisco Ballet. Louise Coetzer’s 2016 reading set the dance to a two-laptop mix of the score. In 2021, during lockdown, Twyla Tharp — herself a highly accomplished musician — worked via Zoom with Düsseldorf’s Ballett am Rhein to make Commentaries on the Floating World.Like Riley, Sasha Waltz devised 53 movement “cells” that her dancers draw upon, retarding, doubling or accelerating each phrase as they see fit. The dozen barefoot dancers share and exchange phrases very much in the manner of the musicians and will at times slip-slide in and out of a unison routine.Jasmin Lepore dresses them in a service wash of vests, shorts and slacks using an uneasy mix of primary and tertiary shades. This random palette is reflected in Olaf Danilsen’s generous (if slightly hyperactive) lighting which washes stage and backcloth in a succession of colours like a vintage cinema organ.Originally conceived (like Tharp’s version) during the height of the pandemic, Waltz’s In C had its first performance as a livestream in 2021 but has since outgrown the concert hall, becoming a key element of her company’s engagement with communities from Caracas to Kharkiv. Waltz’s movement is not without rigour but one can see that students and amateurs joining her In C project would probably cope fairly comfortably with its demands.Waltz and her dancers embrace In C’s improvisatory vibe cheerily enough but never really match the extraordinary interplay between the London Sinfonietta’s musicians, who are the real stars of the evening. As the motifs are rolled out you find your ear and brain surrendering to the soundscape. Each instrument — the noodling trombone, the burbling bass — pursues its own path through the 53 cells, but all magically combine into a wondrous aural pattern: diverse yet harmonious, like birdsong.★★★☆☆‘Multitudes’ festival continues to Saturday May 3, southbankcentre.co.uk
