CHANTAL?

CHANTAL? A dialogue between a movie, a cello and a text.

PNCA hosts a Zena Zezza presentation of a live performance by Paris-based cellist Sonia Wieder-Atherton expressive of her enduring collaboration with filmmaker Chantal Akerman.

Performance Tuesday, May 1: 7pm  Wednesday, May 2: 7pm PNCA Mediatheque, 511 NW Broadway

Conversation Wednesday, May 2: 5pm Sonia Wieder-Atherton in conversation with Sandra Percival OJMCHE, 724 NW Davis St, Portland, OR 97209

Sonia Wieder-Atherton imagined CHANTAL? as a performance structured around an absence — the filmmaker Chantal Akerman (1950-2015), represented on stage by her first film and excerpts from one of her books —and a presence—the stellar cellist Sonia Wieder-Atherton, her companion and collaborator for many years, who “imagined” this dialogue:

“I wanted to play along with her, her every move, her silences, her dancing at once burlesque and deadly serious, her anxiety as she is humming little tunes. Tracking her, surprising her, surprising myself at each step. It begins with Bartok’s “Sonata for Solo Violin” (1944), transcribed here for the cello. This is followed by a child’s voice singing softly at first, then getting louder: Chantal’s voice in “Saute ma ville” (1968)… After the explosion, “A Family in Brussels” (1998) gently slips its way between the notes and the images…” — Sonia Wieder-Atherton

Curated and produced by Sandra Percival, Zena Zezza with the Fondation Chantal Akerman.