The starting point for this performance is the act of walking: one of the simplest actions that can take place on a theatre stage, merely a way to get from stage left to stage right or a sample of everyday life. But it is also inherently musical and inseparable from the notions of pulse, speed, rhythm, direction, synchronicity, and kinetic energy. Walking can define a space, carry semantics and expectations, and is not without reason a historically favourite theme of comedians on stage, film and TV, ranging from understatement to slapstick.
“Walking is a means of forward movement for those organic beings with voluntary movement and feet”, it says in the Brockhaus Encyclopaedia from 1837. Only later thanks to the invention of photography and film were scientists able to visualise and understand the complexity of the movements and juxtapositions of balance involved. Inspired by the experimental settings of the godfather of movement studies Étienne-Jules Marey, Simon Steen-Andersen sets out to deconstruct the phenomenon of walking as theatrical and musical material in a virtuosic game of causality and stage mechanics.

Commissioned by Staatsoper Berlin, Gare du Nord (Basel), Musica Strasbourg and KLANG (Copenhagen)
Written for ENSEMBLE THIS | ENSEMBLE THAT

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-> Link to short interview about Walk the Walk: https://edition-s.dk/news/simon-steen-andersen-danish-premiere-of-walk-the-walk

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