A dancer and a pianist meet Beethoven’s sonatas. Not with reverence, but with breath, body, and risk.
In In This Time, Tale Dolven and Alain Franco engage in a living dialogue with the past. Over three evenings, they return to Beethoven’s 32 piano sonatas – not to perform the full cycle, but to navigate it through three entry points:
What do these works tell us about form, content, and the future?
Day 1: Form
The evening begins with structure. The classical sonata form – opened and twisted. Beethoven’s own formal experiments. Movement follows, precise, yet pliable: contemporary dance, sometimes referencing ballet and popular styles.
Day 2: Content
Now the sonatas speak. Waldstein, Moonlight Sonata. Music filled with metaphor, memory and emotional undercurrents. The dance becomes more personal, the body more vulnerable. The music listens back.
Day 3: Future
What resonates after the final sonata? The Hammerklavier points toward Wagner, Feldman, Glass. Fragments, repetitions and long arcs. Time stretches. The stage becomes an outline of what is yet to come.
Dolven and Franco move seamlessly between dance, dialogue, and performance. Since these sonatas were never meant to be danced, Tale approaches them with freedom and physical curiosity. Alain refuses to treat them as museum artefacts. For him, they breathe: alive and unpredictable.
Together, they open a space for attentive presence. Music, movement, attention – everything unfolds in this time.
● Tale Dolven has danced with Rosas and Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, and currently works with fieldworks, and visual artist AK Dolven.
● Alain Franco is a Brussels-based pianist who has worked with leading figures in dance and theatre, including Meg Stuart and Romeo Castellucci.
In collaboration with Ultima Oslo Contemporary Music Festival .
