A ravaged tower block in the dystopian aftermath of global catastrophe. Environmental collapse? Pandemic? We don’t know, but in the ruins of society, humans and their dead turn to the ancient Tibetan ritual of sky burial. And behind it all, music plays-music of uneasy calm and tender beauty. When man is at odds with nature, which path is more sustainable, more truly harmonious? “While the act of vultures feasting on human flesh appears barbaric, it is not unnatural,” says Mat Collishaw, award-winning British creator of Sky Burial. “I would argue that attuning ourselves more sensitively to the natural world and not becoming blinded by the civilised prisons we have built for ourselves is imperative for our psychological and physical survival.”
In Collishaw’s film, haunting images are juxtaposed with the sacred music of Fauré’s Requiem, performed live during the screening by Insula orchestra and accentus, conducted by Laurence Equilbey. The result is a one-off experience that’s more than just a concert and a film. It’s an unmissable fusion of the visual and the sonic; a meeting of powerful creative imaginations that asks questions that are simultaneously urgent and eternal. You simply have to experience it for yourself.
A production by Pont Neuf, performing Fine Arts in collaboration with Insula Orchestra, Festspielhaus Baden Baden and deSingel, Antwerp.
