Arts | High school » Burrows-Fargion - Cheap Lecture and The Cow Piece

Cheap Lecture and The Cow Piece Jonathan Burrows and Matteo Fargion Burrows and Fargion describe what they do as handmade and human- scale. They build with simple, non-spectacular elements but arrive often at a deceptive virtuosity, radiating delight even as it makes the audience think. Over the past ten years the two artists have built a body of duets which juxtapose the formality of music composition with a radical and open approach to performance and audiences. Cheap Lecture and The Cow Piece are a conversation with the structure of John Cages Lecture On Nothing, at once a homage to and questioning of a way of thinking that has underpinned so much dance and performance in the last thirty years. There are few performers who can hold an audience captive like this double act. the timing of every note, shrug, laugh and gesture is awesome. Five stars Judith Mackrell, The Guardian, on Cheap Lecture and The Cow Piece, London ‘Now, what about Cheap Lecture and The Cow Piece? Both are

dazzling, and they belong together. The simplicity of means in Burrows and Fargions work and the sheer fun that pervades it seduce you into loving it. All the while its inexorably revealing its genius’ Toby Tobias, artsjournal.com, New York .occasionally feeling gloomy during some performance or other, I’ve wished that a fed- up theater goblin would whisk away the show I’m watching and deposit Burrows and Fargion in its place.’ Deborah Jowitt, DanceBeat, on Cheap Lecture and The Cow Piece, New York Jonathan Burrows and Matteo Fargion are supported by Kaaitheater Brussels, PACT Zollverein Essen, Sadlers Wells Theatre London and BIT Teatergarasjen Bergen. Burrows and Fargion are currently in-house artists at the Nightingale, Brighton England. Cheap Lecture was commissioned by Cultureel Centrum Maasmechelen and Dans in Limburg and first performed at the Cultureel Centrum Maasmechelen. The Cow Piece was co-produced by Kaaitheater Brussels and supported by the Flemish Ministry of

Culture. Management: Nigel Hinds – nigel@nigelhinds.couk More information at www.jonathanburrowsinfo Duration: one hour, no interval Both Sitting Duet, The Quiet Dance, Speaking Dance, Cheap Lecture, The Cow Piece, Counting To One Hundred and One Flute Note form part of a growing a body of duets made by Burrows and Fargion, who have given over 300 performances since 2002 across the following countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lebanon, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, UK and the USA. Counting To One Hundred and One Flute Note 2013 Brighton, the Nightingale, January 23 Lancaster, Nuffield Theatre, January 28 Maasmechelen, CCM, February 6 Brussels, Kaaitheater, February 7/8/9 Plymouth, Peninsular Arts, February 28th Lausanne, Théâtre Sévelin 36, March 23 Amsterdam, Frascati, March 27/28

Dresden, Hellerau, April 14 Montreal, Usine C, May 11 Modena, VIE Festival Contemporea, June 1 Grenoble, MC2, June 13 Essen, PACT Zollverein, June 22 Vienna, Impulstanz, July 18 Bergen, BIT Teatergarasjen, October 19 One Flute Note 2013 Nottingham, NottDance Festival, March 17 Modena, VIE Festival Contemporea, May 31 Dusseldorf, Tanzkongress 2013, June 8 Counting To One Hundred 2013 Fosdinovo, Castello in Movimento, July 26 Cheap Lecture and The Cow Piece 2013 Lausanne, Théâtre Sévelin 36, March 22 Beirut, Beirut International Platform of Dance, April 20 Montreal, Usine C, May 9/10 Bergen, BIT Teatergarasjen, October 20 Nurnberg, Duettbiennale, November 23 Cambridge, The Junction, November 30 Show And Tell, 2013 London, Baylis at Sadlers Wells, February 25 Modena, VIE Festival Contemporea, June 1 Munich, Tanzwerkstatt Europa, Aug 2 Bergen, BIT Teatergarasjen, October 21 Speaking Dance, 2013 Beirut, Beirut International Platform of Dance, April 20 Grenoble, MC2, June 14

Fosdinovo, Castello in Movimento, July 26 One Flute Note 2012 London, Dance Umbrella Festival, October 5/14 Counting To One Hundred 2012 London, BDE South Bank Centre, February 4 Brussels, Kaaitheater, February 10/11 Modena, VIE Festival Contemporea, May 25/26 Vienna, Impulstanz, August 7 Paris, Fondation Cartier, September 10 Frankfurt, Frankfurt Lab/Forsythe Company, September 22 London, Dance Umbrella Festival, October 10/14 Cheap Lecture and The Cow Piece 2012 Paris, Fondation Cartier, January 9 Brussels, Kaaitheater, February 8 Lljubljana, Cankarjev Dom, March 20/21 Dublin, Dublin Dance Festival, May 21/22 Varna, ITF Varna Summer, June 4 Sofia, National Theatre, June 5 Berlin, Tanz Im August/Schaubune, August 14/15 Perth, MoveMe Festival, August 28 Frankfurt, Frankfurt Lab/Forsythe Company, September 21 London, Dance Umbrella Festival, October 7/13 Copenhagen, Dansehallerne, October 27 Helsinki, Moving In November, November 3 Speaking Dance 2012 Modena, VIE Festival Contemporea,

May 25/26 Frankfurt, Frankfurt Lab/Forsythe Company, September 22 London, Dance Umbrella Festival, October 12 Both Sitting Duet 2012 Frankfurt, Frankfurt Lab/Forsythe Company, September 23 Cheap Lecture and The Cow Piece 2011 Berlin, Akademie Der Kunste, February 10 Milan, Uovo Festival, March 18 Bologna, Xing, Dom Theatre, April 15 Utrecht, Springdance Festival, April 16 Brighton, Brighton Festival, The Basement, May 20/21 Essen, PACT Zollverein, June 1/2 Madrid, In-Presentable, June 15 Bergen, BIT Studio Bergen, September 8/9 Istanbul, i-Dans, October 2 Bucharest, eXplore dance festival, October 15 Bergen, BIT Studio Bergen September 8/9 New York, Danspace, November 3/5 Leeds, Dance House, November 17 Lancaster, Nuffield Theatre, December 3 Counting To One Hundred 2011 London, Siobhan Davies Studio, July 15 Munich, Tanzwerkstatt Europa, August 6 Derby, Déda, September 16 Brighton, The Nightingale, October 18 Leicester, De Montfort University, December 2 Both Sitting Duet, The

Quiet Dance and Speaking Dance 2011 Caernarfon, Migrations Festival, March 31 New York, Danspace, November 3/4 Lublin, International Dance Theatres Festival, November 11 Cheap Lecture and The Cow Piece 2010 Maasmechelen, Belgium, CCM, February 22 Toronto, Dancemakers Centre for Creation, March 6 Mechelen, kc nOna, March 13 Amsterdam, Frascati, April 9/10 Munich, Muffathalle, May 11/12 Bremen, LIME, June 8 Olomouc Czech Republic, Divadelni Flora, June 15 Poznan, Poland, Stary Browar, July 2 Vienna, Impulstanz Festival, August 8/9 Riga, The New Theatre Institute of Latvia, August 27 Graz, Steirischer Herbst Festival, October 8/9 Florence, Cantieri Goldonetta, October 10 Modena, Scena Contemporanea Festival, October 11/12 London, Dance Umbrella Festival, October 13/14/15 Both Sitting Duet, The Quiet Dance and Speaking Dance 2010 Toronto, Dancemakers Centre for Creation, March 5/6 Hamburg, Kampnagel, May 27/28 Both Sitting Duet, The Quiet Dance, Speaking Dance and Cheap Lecture 2009

Maasmechelen, Belgium, CCM, March 17/18/19 Dartington, Dartington Arts, April 22/23 Perth, Pica, April 26 Stockholm, Weld, May 7/8 Chalon, La Comete, Scene National, May 12 Istanbul, iDans Festival, May 19/20 Essen, PACT Zollverein, June 26/27 Santarcangelo, Santarcangelo Festival, July 3/4/5 Findhorn, Scotland, Bodysurf Scotland, July 10 Brussels, Het Theaterfestival, Kaaitheater, September 2 Budapest, TRAFÓ - House of Contemporary Arts, October 12/13 Bucharest, eXplore Dance Festival, October 15/16 Alkanena, Portugal, Festival Materiais Diversos, November 20 Brussels, Kaaitheater, December 17/18/19 Both Sitting Duet, The Quiet Dance and Speaking Dance 2008 London, Sadlers Wells Theatre, January 11/12/17/18/25/26 Zurich, Theaterhaus Gessnerallee, January 15/16 Berne, Kulturhallen Dampfzentrale, January 27 Royal Holloway, The Boilerhouse, January 30 Frankfurt, Mousonturm, February, 22/23 Leicester, De Motfort University, February 26 Bremen, Tanz Bremen, March 5 Leipzig,

Euroscene, March 9 Brussels, Kaaitheater, April 19 Umea, MADE Festival, May 8 Lisbon, Alkantara Festival, June 3/4 Florence, Goldoni Theatre, June 14 Montpelier, Festivales Des Promenades, July 12 Kalamata, Kalamata Dance Festival, July 20/22 Munich, Tanzwerkstatt Europa, August 15 Amsterdam, Frascati Theatre, September 26/27 Bergen, Oktoberdans, October 28 Leipzig, Euroscene, November 5/6 Parma, Festival Natura Dei Teatri, November 15 Dieppe, Too Much Festival, November 18 Lyon, Maison De La Danse, November 20/21/22 Eastleigh, The Point, November 27/28 Berlin, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, December 5 Both Sitting Duet, The Quiet Dance and Speaking Dance 2007 Brussels, Kaaitheater, February 8/13/17 Maasmechelen, CCM, February 15 Cesana, Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio, March 3/4 Paris, Dessus Dessous, April 13/14 Utrecht, Springdance Festival, April 27/28 Milan, Ouvo, May 15 Seoul, MODAFE, June 4/5 Madrid, in-Presentable, June 16/17 Poznan, Stary Browar, June 30/July 1 St Etienne, Festival de

7 Collines, July 6/7 Vienna, Impulstanz, July 13/20/21 Nyon, Festival Des Arts Vivants, August 15/16 Berlin, Tanz Im August, August 25/26 Tallin, August Dance Festival, August 31 Riga, International Festival Of Contemporary Theatre, September 27/28/29 Lille, UKMoves, October 6 Marseille, Marseille Objectif Danse, October 10 Nottingham, NottDance Festival, October 12 Aberdeen, Citymoves, October 13 Modena, Emilia Romagna Teatro Fondazione, October 17/18 São Paulo, SECS, October 30/31 Rio de Janeiro, Panorama Festival, November 3/4 Leipzig, Euroscene, November 7/8 Dartington, Dartington Arts, November 19 Both Sitting Duet and The Quiet Dance 2006 Barcelona, Sala De Beckett, January 20/21 Bologna, Galleria dArte Modena, April 21 Nottingham, NottDance Festival, May 2 Florence, Cantieri Goldonetta, June 5 Vienna, ImPulsTanz Festival, July 26 Vilnius, National Theatre, September 24 Brussels, Kaaitheater, October 11 Helsinki, Moving In October Festival, Oct 28/29 Oulu, Cultural Centre,

October 31/Nov 1 Modena, Scena Contemporanea Festival, October 24 Royal Holloway, The Boiler Room, November 8 Both Sitting Duet 2005 Cardiff, Wales Millenium Centre, January 6/7 Genk, Culturcentrum Genk, January 14 Rome, Auditorium, February 13 Chicago, Links Hall, March 4/5/6 Strasbourg, May 12/13 Harstaad, June 18 Munich, Muffathalle, August 7 Brussels, Kaaitheater Studios, October 13/14 London, Dance Umbrella Festival, The Place Theatre, October 17/18 Bristol, Arnolfini, December 2 Both Sitting Duet 2004 New York, The Kitchen, March 11/12/13 Antwerp, CCB, April 28 Dublin, International Dance Festival Ireland, May 20/21 Zagreb, Dance Week Festival, May 26 Marseilles, Marseilles Objectif Danse, June 3/4/5 Madrid, La Casa Encendida, June 17/18 Fribourg, Switzerland, Belluard Bollwerk International, July 6 Amsterdam, Julidans, July 7 Munich, Tanzwerkstatt Europa, August 6 Geneva, Theatre du Grutli, September 2/3 Val De Marne, Biennale Nationale de Danse du Val-de-Marne, September 23

Bergen, Teater Garasjen, October 11 Maasmechelen, Belgium, CCM, October 28 Dartington, Dartington Hall, November 2 London, Royal Opera House Clore Studio, November 10/11/12/17/18/19/24/25/26 Huddersfield, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, November 22 Brighton, The Dome, December 3 Florence, Dec 7/8 Bologna, Raum, December 9 Both Sitting Duet 2003 Brussels, Kaaitheater, January 8/9 Stockholm, Panacea Festival, January 26 Nottingham, NOTTDance Festival, May 17th Paris, Menagerie De Verre, June 6/7 Vienna, ImPulstanz Festival, July 18/20 Berlin, Tanz Im August, August 29/30 Milan, Uovo Festival, September 13 Lisbon, Gulbenkian Centre, September 19/20 Yokohama, Yokohama Arts Foundation, September 27/28 Montreal, Festival International de Nouvelle Danse, October 5 Leuven, Klapstuk Festival, October 12/13 London, Dance Umbrella Festival, The Place Theatre, October 15/16/17 Chester, Chester College of H.E, October 22 Both Sitting Duet 2002 Brussels, Kaaitheater, October 10/11

Frankfurt, Mousonturm, November 2/3 Jonathan Burrows was born in 1960. He danced with the Royal Ballet for 13 years, rising to the rank of soloist, before leaving in 1991 to pursue his own choreography. After touring with his own company for some years he decided in 2001 to concentrate on one to one collaborations with other artists, who would share the conception, making, performing and administrating of the work. His first collaboration was Weak Dance Strong Questions (2001), made with the theatre maker and performer Jan Ritsema, which toured to 14 countries. This was followed by a series of duets with Matteo Fargion, beginning in 2002 with Both Sitting Duet, followed by The Quiet Dance (2005), Speaking Dance (2006), Cheap Lecture (2009), The Cow Piece (2009) Counting To One Hundred (2011), One Flute Note (2012) and Show And Tell (2013). The two men have now given over 300 performances across 31 countries. Both Sitting Duet won a 2004 New York Dance and Performance Bessie Award,

and Cheap Lecture was chosen for the 2009 Het Theaterfestival in Belgium. Burrows and Fargion are also contributing artists to William Forsythes Motionbank website project (2012-). Other high profile commissions include Sylvie Guillem and William Forsythe’s Ballet Frankfurt, and in 2008 he was Associate Director for Peter Handkes The Hour We Knew Nothing Of Each Other at the National Theatre, London. His curating work includes As It Is (1998) for the South Bank Centre London, Parallel Voices (2007) for the Siobhan Davies Studios London and All The World Likes To Dance To A Beat (2012) for Fondation Cartier Paris, and he co-curated Rememebring British New Dance (2012) in London with Ramsay Burt and Dance Umbrella 2012 in London with Betsy Gregory. (Burrows has been an Associate Artist at Kunstencentrum Vooruit in Gent, Belgium (1992-2002), London’s South Bank Centre (1998/9) and Kaaitheater Brussels (2008-2010). In 2002 he received an award from the Foundation for Contemporary

Performance Arts in New York, in recognition for his ongoing contributions to contemporary dance. He is a visiting member of faculty at PARTS and has also been Guest Professor at Royal Holloway, University Of London, the Performance Studies Department of Hamburg University, the Institute for Theatre Studies at the Free University Berlin, the Koninklijke Academie van Schone Kunsten Gent, The Institute for Applied Theatre Studies at Giessen University and the Department of Drama, Theatre and Performance at Roehampton University London. A Choreographers Handbook (2010) by Jonathan Burrows is available from Routledge Publishing. Matteo Fargion was born in Milan 1961. He studied composition with the composers Kevin Volans and Howard Skempton and after graduation played bass guitar for a time in the rock band headed by Chris Newman, a formative experience of live performance. His interest in contemporary dance began after seeing the Merce Cunningham Dance Company perform at the Sadlers Wells

Theatre in London. This encounter encouraged him to apply for the International Course for Choreographers and Composers, where he first wrote music for dance and through which he met the choreographer Jonathan Burrows, with whom he has collaborated for more than twenty years. Since 2002 Burrows and Fargion have made a series of seven duets together which continue to tour internationally. Fargion has written music for other choreographers including Lynda Gaudreau and Russell Maliphant. Most importantly over the past fifteen years he has developed a strong collaboration with the leading English choreographer Siobhan Davies, writing music for some of her most significant recent work including The Art of Touch (1995), Two Quartets (2007), Minutes for the Collection (2009) and Rotor (2010). Fargion writes also for theatre, particularly in Germany, where he has worked over a number of years at the Residenz Theater Munich and at the Berlin Schaubühne under the direction of Thomas Ostermeier,

for whom he wrote music for the prize winning 2004 production of Jon Fosses play The Girl on the Sofa. His most recent commission was writing stage music for a production of Ibsens John Gabriel Borkman at the Theater am Josefstadt Vienna. Matteo is a visiting member of faculty at P.ARTS Review of Cheap Lecture and The Cow Piece, Deborah Jowitt, Dancebeat, New York, November 6th 2011 It’s been years since Jonathan Burrows and Matteo Fargion appeared in New York and won a 2004 Bessie (New York Dance and Performance Award) for their Both Sitting Duet. Ever since then, occasionally feeling gloomy during some performance or other, I’ve wished that a fed-up theater goblin would whisk away the show I’m watching and deposit Burrows and Fargion in its place. Burrows is a choreographer who danced with Britain’s Royal Ballet for 13 years. Fargion is a composer who has collaborated with choreographers. But Burrows and Fargion together in any one of the duets they have created to date

zip blithely across borders between the arts. Their Cheap Lecture and Cow Piecetwo of the five works seen on their Danspace St. Mark’s programs November 3 through 5could be class acts in a very brainy postmodern vaudeville. Burrows and Fargion do not, you know. dance Wait, I take that back To begin with, Burrows really does dancecasually delivering some smart little steps in one spot in Cow Piece. But more importantly, the two create a bewitchingly witty dance of words and music and props. In Cheap Lecture, they perform quite close to the audience behind two music stands and in front of a large white screen. They hold sheaves of paper containing their text and cues; once done with a sheet, they toss it to the floor the way radio actors do. The papers’ dance is the unruliest element, and it’s not all that unruly. The men admit during the performance that they were gobsmacked by John Cage’s Lecture on Nothing and borrowed its structure. This means thataccording to some carefully

timed structure related to the music that we hear intermittently on tapethey may deliver, (alone, in unison, or in counterpoint) a lot of text very, very fast, or slow sentences down to fit an allotted time. Frequently, the speaker inserts a pause between words that normally follow each other smoothly, or puts a pause between syllables which has a very strange effect, as if his brain had gone dead for a second. (If Cage, Gertrude Stein, and WS Gilbert had had a child together. Impossible, but you get my drift) Certain of the spoken words are projected on the screensometime just one, sometimes many. When the performers speak of visual and aural rhythms, we understand their point. Burrows and Fargion are brisk cheery fellowsgrin a lot, break up sometimes, never let the pace drop or the rhythms falter (not unintentionally anyway). They speak of many things, uttering pronouncements like “Some things made with ease don’t come easily” and “We don’t know what we’re doing but

we’re doing it.” And of course, this exacting work didn’t come easily, nor do they not know very well what they’re doing. Their ideas can be provocative. The music is defined as “a wall of rhythms against which our thoughts can lean.” But like good stand-up comedians, they know how to include us in their game and throw out asides. They’re also informative Burrows counts numerical sequences for us. We learn that their Cheap Lecture relates to Cage’s Lecture on Nothing the way that composer’s Cheap Imitation relates to Eric Satie’s Socrate (which the Satie estate would not allow Merce Cunningham to use for his already-created dance, Second Hand). And how did Schubert get in here? Schubert with his “fat, stubby hands?” Isn’t that his melody that Fargion goes to the piano to play near the end of Cheap Lecture? What about those hymn-like chords that the taped score keeps intoning? From left field, pleasures keep zinging in. After saying he wants to be a dancing

man, also to leave his footprints in the sand, Burrows keeps throwing up his arms, yelling “Cossack! and Yeaah!” in various combinations and with various pausestickled to be doing so. The end Only it isn’t, because Cow Piece begins immediately. The cows have been there all along: three small plastic Holsteins and three Ayrshires lined up on each of two tables. Burrows has his herd, Fargion his. Both men also have notebooks to consult and musical instruments to play: mandolin; accordion; harmonica; small, table-top harmonium; and a soda can hit with a stick. Two songs advertise the collaborators’ respective patrimonies Fargion, born in Milan, sings a Neapolitan love song in English; Burrows comes up with a British music-hall ditty, “Your Baby Has Gone Down the Plughole.” It’s probably too soon to put forth love and death as a theme in the deliriously, mindbogglingly eccentric Cow Piece, but keep it in the back of your mind. Burrows and Fargion handle their cows

rhythmically, decisively, and often violently. Each has his own method They may segregate them as to black-and-white and brown-and-white, lay them on their sides, slap them down rapidly like cards in a cut-throat play-off, or change the animals’ placing as if trying to deceive us with a shell game. Fargion holds two of them up by his ears and shakes them like maracas. I would not like to be one of those cows. Burrows nestles his on a scarf, then tumbles down, taking the herd with him. Fargion has a supply of tiny nooses; he can loop one around a cow’s neck before throwing it to the floor. Toward the end, two cows are perched at the very edge of the table, and Fargion, speaking for them in a falsetto, cries out for help ( “Aiuto!”), before shoving them off and starting to singalso in a high, frail voicethe lament Henry Purcell wrote for his Dido (“When I am laid in earth. ”) What did I tell you about love and death? Burrows actually says those words at one fastpaced point.

Then there’s the dialogue that Fargion conducts in two voices between death and an unwilling victim; it sounds like a clumsy translation of the Schubert lieder “Death and the Maiden” (sample: “Go away, you fierce skeleton!”). To a foot-tappingly jaunty tune, the men tell us “Don’t fear the reaper.” Oh, right We saw how you two toyed with those cows We’re ready to be very afraid. As soon as we stop laughing Deborah Jowitt Review of Cheap Lecture and The Cow Piece, Tobi Tobias, theartsdesk.com, New York, November 3rd 2011 More So Than Ever When the presumably odd couple Jonathan Burrows (dancer and choreographer) and Matteo Fargion (musician and composer) played The Kitchen back in 2004 in their Both Sitting Duet I titled my review (lots of description, some analysis, intimations of enchantment) "Less Is More." Seven years later, theyre back in New York for three performances at Danspace Project, for which they may have been thinking that less was not

quite enough. Opening night was essentially a double-header: their first success here was preceded by Cheap Lecture and The Cow Piece, two works, made in 2009, that New York hadnt seen yet. Now, what about Cheap Lecture and The Cow Piece? Both are dazzling, and they belong together. The first makes its point largely through words; the second, through absurdist deeds Both ramp up Burrows and Fargions particular gift--articulation and offbeat timing in spoken language and body percussion--to such a virtuosic degree that a first- time onlookers head starts to reel. I, for one, felt I was taking in only part of what was actually going on Id jump at the chance to see both pieces again, right now. Best of all, soundly rooted in the couples earlier work, they move it along to more complex developments, refining and advancing their unconventional aesthetic. Cheap Lecture is a loving mockery of sessions purporting to convey information--even wisdom--by a pair of professorial types. Youve sat

before them, puzzled or benumbed, in college or the halls of adult education. (Granted, this pair is dressed like handymen, but that costume is just these artists trademark.) Each fellow, standing, speaks into his own standing mike, but the two thread their utterances into their partners as if to represent a single person. Silences, little and large, make for the duos off-beat timing, and their use of repetition owes much to Gertrude Stein. Each guy holds a sheaf of paper that is supposedly the script of his talk. Page by page, he drops it onto the floor when he finishes making one of his pointed/ pointless points. Behind the speakers is a large screen onto which are projected the key words and phrases of their rant; these might be the notes taken by a dutiful listener, pathetically intent upon enlightenment. Be assured, though, that the B&F tone is neither bitter nor supercilious. Life is absurd, theyre telling us, and were all in it together The Cow Piece uses the same

setting--but to another purpose. Burrows and Fargion stand behind a pair of laboratory-style tables, each of which has become home to a mini- herd of a half-dozen three-inch plaster or plastic cows. On an undercoat of white, half of them are spotted black; half, sienna. The men are their irresponsible shepherds, given to the intermittent playing of invitations to peasant-style dancing--on a harmonica, a mandolin, and (my erudite guest informs me) a miniature harmonium. The men arrange and rearrange their cows obsessively and count them again and again like uncertain, if loving, parents. Farjeon even names his--Italian names, like Bella and Lavinia, that refer to his ancestry. As the pace of these doings and the energy put into them accelerate, the men-- like very young children whose playing has gotten out of hand--escalate into gleeful cruelty to their cattle, knocking them down and, clever devils, hanging them on minuscule ropes made of string. Throughout the piece, the narrative is,

accompanied by all the iterations, gestures, and skewed timing typical of the makers style. The crazy antics and even wilder joy are horrifying and amusing at the same time. Something I continue to find amazing about Burrows and Fargions work is that many of its viewers think at first that theyve stumbled upon little-known-talent--you know, just by accident. No such chance The duo has performed its repertoire internationally, consistently intriguing its audience, and has been officially commended with honors such as a New York Dance and Performance Award (a "Bessie") and high-end commissions (for Burrows) from the likes of William Forsythes Ballet Frankfurt and Sylvie Guillem. At first glance, the pieces dont seem to have any hidden ambitions but rather to be like something you yourself (or, more likely, a clever child) could fashion with one of those kits of 1001 click-together parts. The simplicity of means in Burrows and Fargions work and the sheer fun that pervades it

seduce you into loving it. All the while its inexorably revealing its genius Tobi Tobias Review of Cheap Lecture and The Cow Piece, Judith Mackrell, The Guardian, London, 14th October 2010 5 stars Wed make work like Pina Bausch if we could, says Jonathan Burrows, But this is what were good at. As their 2009 piece called Cheap Lecture demonstrates, what he and Matteo Fargion are brilliant at is turning the eccentricities of their shared creative world into irresistible theatre. The idea for the piece, they tell us, was initially stolen from John Cage. Taking off from Cages inspired logic of subversion, the two men deliver a performance thats neither dance, music nor even a lecture. Its a 40-minute standup set in which they talk in fast, rhythmic, musically shaped phrases about the nature of composition, the mysteries of theatrical time and space, and the complicity between audience and performer. Some of it is startlingly wise, some of its preposterously funny, and all of it

effortlessly transcends pretension. There are few performers who can hold an audience captive like this double act – Burrows with his terrier intellect snapping at the heels of Fargions comic, Italianate dolour. In their second offering, The Cow Piece, they veer off into wilder ranges of fantasy. They stand behind tables, laid out with 12 model cows, and start weaving stories around them. Fargion croons out their names in Italian, plays war games and serenades them. Burrows enacts their fate in ballet mime, a Morris dance and an old cockney song. Its all wildly, unclassifiably bonkers – postmodern music hall or performance art in a house of mirrors or a tower of Babel. But the timing of every note, shrug, laugh and gesture is awesome. The nonsense has a shining clarity Judith Mackrell Review of Cheap Lecture and The Cow Piece, Ismene Brown, www.theartsdeskcom, 14th October 2010 It’s hard to believe that Burrows was once a major Royal Ballet artist, on the character side,

because his choreography so rapidly abandoned the conventions of ballet (actually I don’t remember his works having much about ballet except a whiff of its fluidity in certain windblown whirls and lifts). It travelled for a while towards the William Forsythe school of almost scientifically fascinating movement, broken up and examined in masterpieces like Our and The Stop Quartet, before stopping and we were left Burrows- less for a long, worrying while. Then it returned 10 years ago, wholly unpredictably, in an odd duet with a Dutchman in which Burrows started talking. After that, there was no stopping him. He found a new co-worker, the composer Matteo Fargion, and they made three startling and hilarious duets, examining rhythm from all sorts of angles, applying speech like an abstract percussive instrument to stumbling little dances, patting, whistling, yelping, seriously eccentric amusements. And they are back this week for three precious days, with an hour’s entertainment that

continues the trilogy’s ideas in the funniest, richest, most life-enhancing evening I’ve had at anything associated with the dance label this year (probably since their last one). Part one, Cheap Lecture (pictured right, by Herman Sorgeloos), is a cheeky tribute to John Cage and the happenings that bust open ideas about dance in American theatre in the early 1950s. It is a delightfully crazed dual lecture, playing off one character against the other (lugubrious clown Fargion, perky professorial Burrows), just as surely as it plays the natural rhythms that give sentences meaning off against insistently different and sometimes warring rhythms. This is not, as they admit, a new idea One of their lines is: We don’t know what we’re doing, but we’re doing it - (shrug) - everything is stolen anyway. They make their thefts clear in their script, no less funny for that. The lines jibe at the con-trick that performers play against their audience by feeding the audience’s willingness

to believe in them (no matter how vacant the performers are feeling). Yet when the lines are fractured by wrong rhythms (rather like Shakespeare’s Mechanicals in Pyramus and Thisbe in A Midsummer Night’s Dream), words become mad lost creatures looking to join up with others and acquire a meaning in the gap. This sounds too serious. but it’s the serene intellectual curiosity underlying even the cheapest gags that makes this so enjoyable a Cageian homage. One has known about the imminent cows all along, as there are 12 little plastic Friesians lined cutely up on the tables behind the pair in the first part; but the uproarious use of them in The Cow Piece is an explosively funny surprise. Like competing costermongers, Burrows and Fargion demonstrate their toy cows, creating tight little suspense dramas about their fates - some of them gruesome - snatching up musical instruments, a ukulele, a harmonica, a modest little squeezebox, an accordion, a piano, and dragging poor Schubert in

there somehow. Fargion lards it lavishly with Italian capriciousness, strumming Neapolitan ditties, blowing a football refs whistle and pointing accusingly between two guilty plastic cows, Wasn’t me, Wasn’t me, or crying Muoio! Muoio! (Im dying) like Scarpia in Tosca while Burrows cuts a caper. Burrows, who’s a brilliant music-hall stooge, counters with a mock-Victorian song about a baby that meets an unfortunate end. How do they notate such complex interlockings of gesture, sound, word, props and movement, allying logic ad absurdam with subconscious association-games? How long does it take them to create this diabolical puzzle? Never mind - just please go and see this tonight or tomorrow. It could be years before they’re back. Ismene Brown Review of Cheap Lecture and The Cow Piece, Mirjam van der Linden, de Volkskrant, Holland, 18th April 2011 4 stars It is funny and touching how in a nice, but also very serious manner, these two middle-aged men create such a playful

recital Men at play were the heroes of Springdance this weekend. Two people working as one (Jonathan Burrows & Matteo Fargion), or losing it in an innocent dance battle amongst friends (Savion Glover and his buddies Marshall Davis Junior and Maurice Chestnut). Both of these performances are about rhythm, one through spoken word and the other through tap dance. A fantastic combination Jonathan Burrows ( a former ballet dancer) and Matteo Fargion, composer, have been working together on a series of unusual duets for years. No dance, no music, no lecture, but really a kind of live poetry. In Cheap Lecture, inspired by John Cage’s Lecture on Nothing, the men read aloud a text about what they are doing, and how we as an audience generate meaning ‘in the space between words and thoughts’, ’between what we are saying and what you are hearing’. The words are spoken so fast that you barely have time to process them. Alternatively they are cut off and emphasised in such a way that

unruly and stammering rhythms arise. With every piece of paper that is read and swirled to the ground, your own thoughts swirl a bit more freely, joining the playful flow that Burrows and Fargion create. In their second performance, The Cow Piece, also from 2009, fantasy forces through and structure is let go. The score for this performance is formed by two exercise books. A Dadaistic game gradually unfolds around a series of small toy cows which are standing on the table. They are christened with beautiful Italian names and spoken to as if in a catholic ceremony, but eventually they are all killed off. Moving, ticking and flicking with fingers, a minimal arm gesture here and there and some folk tunes on a ukulele, accordion or harmonica complete the absurdity of the piece. It is funny and touching how in a nice, but also very serious manner, these two middle-aged men create such a playful recital. Mirjam van der Linden Review of Cheap Lecture and The Cow Piece, Jann Parry,

Ballet.magazine, October 2010 You cant call us minimalists any longer, says Jonathan Burrows of his and Matteo Fargions latest double-bill. The second part, The Cow Piece, is a cul-de-sac in the series of duets hes been doing with Fargion since 2002, starting with Both Sitting Duet, which did – more or less - what its title described. The Cow Piece ends with the performance area almost as littered as one of Pina Bauschs messier works: reams of paper, a dozen tortured model cows, miniature nooses and an array of musical instruments. The hour-long set starts off deceptively austerely with Cheap Lecture, recited in turn by both performers. They admit that they borrowed the structure from John Cages 1959 Lecture on Nothing (which Fargion has performed as a rhythmic reading). Where Cage would pronounce I have nothing to say and I am saying it, Burrows and Fargion claim We dont know what were doing and were doing it – and stealing it. The result is a 40 minute patter song, a rap about

rules and audience responses, delivered deadpan. They discard the pages of their scores one by one If the pages are anything like Cages lecture script, theyre printed in 48 units of 12 lines, spaced so that the rhythms dont necessarily correspond with the sense (if any) of the sentences. It amounts to a kind of collective brain-washing, patterning our expectations and alerting us to repetitions without giving us time to think. Were so busy laughing and trying to keep up that we cant think Think what? While were still befuddled, they launch into The Cow Piece, a Mornington Crescent game that disrupts the rules established in Cheap Lecture. They seem to operate in parallel universes, following inner rhythms that happen to coincide – and which they acknowledge with a smile of surprise. Cows get serenaded and abused Fargion, their executioner, croons Didos Lament to one of them; Burrows sings them a comic song, foretelling their fate in ballet mime, fists crossed. Together they play a

jig or reel on a ukelele and accordion. Burrows, of course, was a folkdance expert during his years with the Royal Ballet, as a dancer, musician and teacher Still nimble at 50, he comes across as a music-hall artiste in the style of Dan Leno, who used to cut Irish capers while reciting mournful Cockney ballads. Burrows and Fargion make a superb po-faced double act, complementing each other as highly intelligent clowns. Theyre perfectly serious about their work, investigating the boundaries of postmodern dance and music while entertaining themselves and us. Jann Parry The music is virtuosic Lieve Dierckx, from the Flemish Theatre Institute , Corpus Art Criticism 2009 Vilain XIIII is a castle situated in the village of Leut, in the Belgian province of Limburg. It harbours a magnificently restored Nanette Streicher pianoforte from 1826 that, in the latest of its nine lives, appears to have prompted a three-day festival round the work of choreographer Jonathan Burrows and his

associate, composer Matteo Fargion. These two gentlemen have hatched their very own idiosyncratic language in the overlap between music and dance, a far cry from the idea of dance as ‘moving to music’. Rhythm, timing and ‘attitude’ are their common terrarium for creating a compelling vocabulary that all at the same time succeeds in enhancing a democratic relationship with the public. Both the pianoforte and the duo share the keen interest of Hugo Haeghens, director of the local cultural centre of Maasmechelen. At some point in the past, during a residency at his centre, Burrows and Fargion had solemnly promised him to do ‘something’ with his cherished pianoforte. Much more than ‘something’ it has indeed not become, because the old instrument, so lovingly restored to its original state, is not put to use for much more than five minutes throughout the festival. All the while, the pianoforte does serve as a symbol of the duo’s working method in the sense that they tend

to take as a starting point the reformulation of historic dance and music material. Burrows himself describes their interest in ‘scores’ and ‘translation’ as an answer to the post-modern dilemma on the impossibility of creating something new, but one might just as well find a niche for that idea in the hipper and more recent ecological recycling mood that seems to have expanded into a renewed interest for repertory and re- enactment in the arts of the stage. A festival round one choreographer or one company is quite unusual in Flander’s contemporary dance scene. Organizer Hugo Haeghens is one of the few programmers who dares take that kind of risk and in the past he has shown excellent judgment on ‘smaller’ work of interest. Burrows and Fargion cannot be counted among young talent in any sense but their careers did take some quite unexpected turns. The duo met in London, at the time that Burrows worked as a soloist for the venerable Royal Ballet which he was part of for

the better part of thirteen years. In 1995 he asked composer Matteo Fargion to write the music to a small choreography ‘Hands’ that was in its turn to be used in a film. They worked together in a classical constellation of choreographer/composer until 2002 when their relationship took a radical turn with Both Sitting Duet in which they went on stage on completely equal footing. At this point we return to Maasmechelen because Burrows and Fargion open the first night of their festival with Both Sitting Duet, a work that was later on to become the first part of their trilogy of duets. The other parts, The Quiet Dance and Speaking Dance, were performed on the second evening as a double bill. This intensive submersion engenders a clear image of the evolution in the duo’s language. Both Sitting Duet, executed on two chairs, is a movement transcription for four hands of a score that composer Morton Feldman dedicated to John Cage. But the only sound we hear is that of the hands dancing

and the rustle of the score’s pages that Burrows and Fargion each keep in front of them on the floor. In The Quiet Dance the sound of voices is introduced: while Burrows executes a repetitive movement phrase in which he walks forward from an erect posture to a low bow in eight counts, Fargion produces with his voice a sighing sound that rises higher on each of the same eight counts. The inspiration is a music scale, from high to low In Speaking Dance, the last part of the trilogy, the movement has moved to paper altogether. Again, the two performers sit on two chairs next to each other and commence a game of word and sound rhythm that is based on dance instructions they have in front of them in a score. Once in a while Fargion erupts into old Italian songs or produces some old chimes on a mouth organ. The trilogy might be seen as a shifting in focus from movement to music, but in the end the shift comes down to an extraction of its common denominators: musicality, rhythm and

timing. Manifesto Only on the third day does the festival move from Maasmechelen’s cultural centre to Castle Vilain XIIII. In the late afternoon Burrows and Fargion start off with a lecture performance on their sources of inspiration that range from Nijinska’s Les Noces, over folkdance from Oxfordshire and South-Africa, to bottle music, chaos and order in the work of Tadeusz Kantor, Max Wall, the musical A Chorus Line, Samuel Becket, the music of Morton Feldman, Steve Reich and John Cage, dub reggae and shared autobiographical experiences. The key words in this amalgam are again rhythm and timing, next to dignity and the quality of contact with the public as well as with the performance itself. The centre piece of the festival, the première of Cheap Lecture, is then performed later on the same evening in the former reception hall of the castle. Cheap Lecture proves to be a manifesto on the duo’s work and their relationship with the public, framed in a format of an incongruous,

impossible, absurdly comical waterfall of rhythmicalized thoughts. In the back of the stage the pianoforte is being discreetly beautiful. To the front, on the right, two microphones are waiting. The two gentlemen come on stage, each carrying their obligatory bunch of score papers. In one big step they are behind their microphones,and without the slightest nanomoment of introductory sauntering they launch on a sustained rhythmical drive of spoken phrases which they read from their papers: We apologize, and We have come with empty hands. In the background we hear a sound- scape with a few simple Schubert chords that they have recorded earlier in the week on the fortepiano. Only at the end, in the last minutes of the performance, the pianoforte is allowed on leave from its imposed decorative role. Fargion installs himself in front of the keyboard and replays some of the Schubert-chords while Burrows reinforces the procedure with a rhythmically repeated ‘boum’, ‘boum’, ‘boum’.

The torrent of voiced phrases of Cheap Lecture does not involve any movement phrase. ‘Real’ music is reduced to some lost notes and ‘real’ dance never exceeds the one step forward. It is the words that dance, the mutual exchange of looks and glances between the two performers, between them and the public, it is the leaves from the bunch of papers in their hands as they throw them with a small sway to the floor after each spoken word or sentence, it is the humour that dances through the score. Likewise all of those elements are turned into music. The performers do not play with pitch or volume: everything is centered around the force of rhythm and timing. Timing It is this sense of timing that Cheap Lecture shares with the trilogy the previous two festival days. Burrows and Fargion command timing as few others do, they can stand the comparison with the world’s best clowns or comics. One critic called them the Laurel and Hardy of avantgarde dance - but that would do

injustice to their added value as dance and music performers Their work does have that comical aspect that is present in the perfect placing of a glance, a sigh or one of those typical movements of the head with which they conclude a voiced phrase or a movement phrase. Fargion especially is good at that, he also has the classical physiognomy of a clown, a somewhat melancholy expression that matches his short and sturdy build. All in all, the kind of physical appearance that discerning women swoon for On the other hand, Burrows and Fargion shrink back from an excess of humour because they want their public to keep in touch with the fact that their work is a serious proposal. Their humour is indeed part of a broader range of significance in their work – work which for that matter is quite indescribable. When watching Burrows and Fargion on stage for the first time I was quite happy not to have to write about the event. My only attempt at putting into words what I had seen stopped at a

comparison with watching a game you do not know the rules of, but that is clearly so much fun that you would absolutely love to be part of it. That description still goes in Maasmechelen. There is something in what these two performers do that entices one to keep on watching expectantly in order to see what they will be up next in their intricate game that one cannot, as yet, make head or tail of. And it is exactly that created sense of expectancy that is, according to musicologists, at the core of timing. Music scientist Henkjan Honing proposes that timing (the playing with time between two notes of music) is what keeps the attention of the listener going at a primitive cognitive level – and in a more fundamental way than what harmony or tone setting can bring about. Even more intriguing is the fact that Honing makes the link with the human body. Here is a citation from the scientist in a letter on his project for computer-generated music: ‘(.) I believe we have overlooked

something very crucial. Timing of course not only has to do with the placing of notes, it is also about the musician himself, about what some refer to as "embodied music". Attitude That certainly goes for Jonathan Burrows and Matteo Fargion: it is the way in which they physically use timing that catches and holds attention. Their specific ‘attitude’ towards their movement material, their movement and musical score constitutes a significant added value in their work. On the one hand the makers deliberately use movement and sound material that is impossibly intricate, nipping any attempt at perfect execution skilfully in the bud. This self-imposed impossibility is then turned into the motor for their performance, which they execute with high concentration and sharp focus because, yes, the will to excel is there. The best we can was one of the rhythmically spoken phrases from Cheap Lecture. On the other hand, within this format, they allow themselves mistakes. In their more

movementoriented performances the result is a laid-back way of moving, and even when they do not move, their relaxed self-relativism results in infectious fun that effortlessly generates the spectator’s direct involvement. One might describe this ‘attitude’ as a kind of work ethos with a highly hospitable tinge. In the hierarchy between the spectator and the performance it helps to pull down the glass wall of authoritative complexities. The distance with what is shown on stage is bridged, however abstract or incomprehensible the performance may be. In the virtuosity of the movement material or in the lack of it, Burrows and Fargion again play with the element of ‘attitude’. Their technical skills are very different: Burrows’ incorporated ballet background gives him a physical control that is much more finely tuned than that of Fargion; Burrows tends to do more, to repeat movements more often or to execute them faster. Fargion is not a trained dancer and adds rest to the

whole through a certain slowness. Within those differences their execution puts forward the dignity of their individual qualities. ‘The informal crashing into the formal’ – a music principle of John Cage they quote in Cheap Lecture is thus applicable at several levels – the virtuoso ballet alignment of Burrows versus the lack of it on the part of Fargion, their virtuoso scores that clash with the use of ‘everyday’ movements. What they bring about on stage can be summarized from the phrases they keep on throwing at the spectators during Cheap Lecture: If we accept that our hands are empty then something usually turns up to fill them. or also, Composition is about making a choice, including the choice to make no choice. Music is a negotiation with the patterns your fingers are thinking Is it any surprise that the chief source of inspiration for Cheap Lecture is John Cage’s Lecture on Nothing? After the festival in Maasmechelen the duo stated that Cheap Lecture was to be the

first part of a new trilogy that they want to put on stage before the end of 2009. On top of that Jonathan Burrows is planning a theoretical publication that clarifies his work. Something to look forward to impatiently. A new perspective What Jonathan Burrows and Matteo Fargion do is quite effective. They show a happy, open and intelligent mode of being on stage that has no need of intricate elucidation or big technical means. Body language and sound do the trick. Their specific ‘attitude’ opens a space for resonance between the work, the performers and the spectators without having to make artistic concessions. That is impressive Lieve Dierckx Flemish Theatre Institute , Corpus Art Criticism 2009. Review of Cheap Lecture Pieter TJonck, De Morgen, September 2nd 2010 A daring exercise in watching and listening A lot of people were surprised by the choice of Cheap Lecture, a piece by Jonathan Burrows and Matteo Fargion, for the 2009 Theatre Festival. Burrows is a London

choreographer who moved to Brussels only recently, but who has been highly acclaimed in the Belgian dance world for some time. Fargion is a musician from London. But what were they doing at the Theatre Festival? It certainly wasn’t because there is so little actual ‘dance’ in this piece, but rather because they have a special way with words and meaning. Burrows is a special case for two reasons. Firstly, few people have successfully moved from a career as a soloist with the Royal Ballet to one as an avant-garde choreographer. Secondly, it is equally remarkable that in each successive work he does more with less. Yet this does not mean he pursues a highly-distilled, austere style. This work has nothing to do with the ‘less is more’ principle espoused by Mies van der Rohe, but more with the stillness in the work of John Cage. Take Cheap Lecture The title is a salute to Cage’s Cheap Imitation, which in its turn is a loose interpretation of music by Erik Satie. Two men stand at

a microphone with a pile of paper in their hands and read aloud, sometimes alone and sometimes together. Each time they finish a page, they let it flutter to the floor where an untidy heap of paper soon accumulates. Their words are not easy to follow because they speak them in a highly rhythmical fashion. Cage was also the source of this rhythm, specifically his Lecture on Nothing. Here too, the coherence of the sentences is often broken apart by rhythm The same words also appear on a screen behind Burrows and Fargion, but with a different beat, and therefore not always in sync. This too makes it difficult to follow their arguments You nevertheless realise that Burrows and Fargion are saying meaningful things about what a performance does, and what makes watching a performance worthwhile. They talk about simple but essential ideas, such as the tension between the structure of a piece and the content you put into it, and how you might make it absorbing to watch. They also bring up such

fundamental questions as the relationship between performer and audience. But it is also about the way these two performers approach performance: ‘best we can, maximum strength’ is a slogan that constantly recurs, like a mantra they use to buck themselves up for their seemingly pointless undertaking. We hear the sound of a piano from a couple of loudspeakers, and if you listen carefully you will hear an overfamiliar piece of Schubert. So there’s not much dance to be seen, except when Burrows occasionally sticks up his arm with a laugh, as a sort of concession to anyone who was expecting more movement. So what is the significance of all this? Cheap Lecture is an exercise in watching and listening without immediately making a judgement. Its all about the power of the moment, about the breath and the rhythm of the performance, of which you as the spectator become a part, whether you like it or not. With their sometimes amusing, but intense performance, Burrows and Fargion help you

considerably in this respect. In the end your head starts dancing of its own accord, which is marvellous It is theatre, but not what could be expected or foreseen. Jonathan Burrows and Matteo Fargion have made a piece that dances inside your head. Pieter TJonck Review of Cheap Lecture and The Cow Piece, Sabine Leucht, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 18th May 2010 The Rhythm is the Boss Jonathan Burrows and Matteo Fargion in the Muffat Hall The sluggishness of perception is the sad thing about the short evening with which the dancer and choreographer Jonathon Burrows and the composer Matteo Fargion enchanted the Muffat Hall. First the contents of their spoken-word performance Cheap Lecture galloped off, then we were confused by the breakneck speed with which plastic cattle were executed in The Cow Piece, by shouted words such as paranoia, shock and coma, and by the simultaneous overlapping of awkward movements and knocking, whistling and clicking noises. The Cow Piece, however, is also

hilariously wacky, even if one cannot determine whether or not the rhythm of the torpedo reading at the beginning comes from a prerecorded track. Furthermore, these two nice middle-aged gents have already absolved us: they assure us that we’re on the right track if our inability to follow a train of thought makes us feel desperate: because in the art of empty hands, only the present counts. Burrows and Fargion are a well-rehearsed duo. Though their disparate sets of talents overlap to yield only a small intersecting set, they fortunately know how to make a virtue from this necessity. The one performer cannot dance and the other cannot make music, so they necessarily decided to do something that both can: namely, heroically say yes to minimalism. In this specific form, and for the past several years, their affirmative vote has generated startling moments when they and their audiences exclaim, Ooh!, and has hurled lightning bolts of sudden realization toward that which does not take

place, e.g virtuosic dance Take The Quiet Dance for example: already in 2005, the individualistic had surprisingly emerged from their spasmodic striving toward synchrony. This insight also flowed into the pool of mnemotechnic sentences from which Burrows and Fargion ladle ideas in Cheap Lecture, in which they rhythmically recite, chop and rap sequences of words, with and against one another, between the lines and to the accompaniment of Schubert’s music. At some point in that piece too, the audience hears the phrase a wall of rhythm against which our thoughts can lean. Ah, yes, the rhythm: they need it, they both agree, because they’re admittedly not the world’s greatest improvisers. Therefore they assemble a rhythm in the first part, which they appoint to be their boss in the second part. All this occurs without drawing distinctions: mellifluous Italian names for the cows, the noise of cows being shoved toward the edge of a table, the clunking thuds when cattle fall to the

floor, the turning of the arms or a Neapolitan love song. Thus one is prompted to take a new look at the hierarchies in one’s system of concepts and values, as well as at Burrows’ definition of counterpoint as love between the parts. Thoughts dance and, not without rhythm, the diaphragm dances too. Sabine Leucht