Limina / Sensation 1
“Limina invites to surrender into a complexly embodied sonic space that embraces raw sound as both a manifestation of and refuge from an unnameable external force. In simple terms, Limina is concerned not just with sound but with tactility—that is to say with touch, with the capacity to feel, and with the sensation of being touched.” – Mark Barden
Limina (plural of “limen”: a threshold in which a stimulus can be said to trigger a psychological or physiological response) attempts to slow down the perception of time through an immersive, hypnotic sensory environment that attunes the audience to listen deeply into the substructures of sonic phenomena. It cultivates tension between dense textures and expansive soundscapes, inviting psychoacoustic illusions and hallucinations through gradually evolving sound masses. Limina is designed to be performed alongside Dominican-American choreographer Ligia Lewis’s solo Sensation 1 and can be understood as an homage to that powerful sculptural study of embodiment and performative identity. The works are presented in sequence rather than simultaneously. This juxtaposition creates a dialogue that allows the works’ atmospheres and apperception to interpenetrate in a diffuse, hybridized, and individual way rather than through the direct correlations that arise from simultaneity: Our memory of the first work persists as a shadow during the second, shaping affect and meaning, to name just one effect.
“The gesture of song animates the seemingly static body, giving form to an intensified interior and exterior space of the body.” – Ligia Lewis on Sensation 1
In cooperation with Wien Modern
studied composition with Lewis Nielson, Rebecca Saunders, Mathias Spahlinger, Jörg Widmann, Roger Redgate and graduated from Oberlin Conservatory, Hochschule für Musik Freiburg and Goldsmiths College London. Mark Barden composes concert music and sound installations with and without live musicians. His works understand sound as a fundamentally physical phenomenon. By emphasizing the violence of sound production – grasping, hitting and scratching – he invites the audience not only to listen, but also to physically experience the sound. More recent pieces combine virtuosity with noise-based sound material, striving for an inward-looking complexity that, like microscope views of cells or atoms, is at once life-affirming and filled with a dizzying richness of detail. Commissioned works by leading cultural institutions and festivals (including Donaueschingen, Witten, Wien Modern, Goethe Institut) have been performed by Klangforum Wien, Ensemble intercontemporain, ensemble recherche, the Mivos Quartet, KNM Berlin, ensemble mosaik, Nicolas Hodges, and the Arditti Quartet, among others. He is professor of composition at the Detmold University of Music. His scores are published by Edition Peters.
is a dancer and choreographer. She creates affective choreographies while interrogating the metaphors and social inscriptions of the body. Lewis’s work continues to provoke the nuances of embodiment. Her work has been shown at various venues and festivals, such as Abrons Arts Center / American Realness (New York), Flax / Fahrenheit (Los Angeles), Palais de Tokyo (Paris) and Tanz im August, presented by HAU Hebbel am Ufer (Berlin). Her awards and honours include the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grant (2018), a Bessie Award for “Outstanding Production” for minor matter (2017), and ImPulsTanz’s Prix Jardin d’Europe for Sorrow Swag (2015). Most recently, she was the winner of the Tabori Award in 2021. In 2022 she will show her latest group choreography Still Not Still at TQW.
Credits
Music, concept Mark Barden Performance, concept Ligia Lewis Interpretation Ensemble Nikel (Yaron Deutsch, electric guitar; Patrick Stadler, saxophone; Brian Archinal, Drums; Antoine Françoise, keyboard instruments; Maxime Le Saux, sound engineering) – Mark Barden: Limina for electric guitar, saxophone, drums and keyboard instruments (2021, commissioned by Wien Modern). Ligia Lewis: Sensation 1, Performance (2011 / new iteration 2021 in collaboration with Mark Barden). The performance is inspired by Whitney Houston’s I Will Always Love You, Divas Live, 1999. Production Wien Modern and Tanzquartier Wien