Between performance and installation, François Chaignaud and Marie-Pierre Brebant’s new project begins at BoCA. They will create a visual and musical performance for voice and bandura using the first five antiphons of “Symphonia harmoniae caelestium revelationum” by Hildegarde von Bingen, at Teatro Nacional São Carlos (Lisbon’s opera house).

Presented in loop, the pieces are the subject of a static and choreographed performance, harrowing and unpredictable, sung, danced, fantasized, and set to music. Making use of an archaic, free musical language, Hildegarda de Bingen’s vision serves a fervent and carnal relationship with the divine.

In the grand salon at Teatro Nacional São Carlos, Bingen’s melodies both call to and disturb us: they make the forgotten, mute, musical and symbolic archaeology of the building audible, while disturbing the stylistic and cultural cannons of the institution.