Winter & Winter
"The Ninth Wave — Ode To Nature" Trailer Long
Stefan Winter
THE NINTH WAVE — ODE TO NATURE
2020
Sound and Film Installation
Author and Director: Stefan Winter
Music: Fumio Yasuda after Ludwig van Beethoven
Allegory (Living Sculptur): Aki Tsujita
Actors: Aisha Ibrahim, Stefan Winter
Director of Photography: Gernot Aschoff
First Camera Assistant: Florian Epple
Film Editing: Lena Flecke, B.O.A.
Post-Production, Color Grading: Marcus Adam, Scanwerk
Producer: Mariko Takahashi and Stefan Winter
The Ninth Wave — Ode To Nature is a carefully directed composition of a film poem with adaptations of environmental sounds and music, dealing with the destruction of nature, neo-colonialism and human behaviour in general and its effects.
The Ninth Wave is about the destruction of nature and general human behaviour and its effects.
Nine individual scenes, each nine minutes long, form three trilogies: Infinite Blue, Deep Green and Zone Red.
Nine sculptures come to life and embody creation, finiteness, beauty, forlornness, flight, search, powerlessness, hatred, desolation and again new creation. Breathtaking, fantastic images appear on their bodies, reflecting from their innermost being.
The work has a concrete trigger: the refugee tragedy on October 3, 2013 in front of Lampedusa. Memories of Beethoven's "Ninth", the meaning of the last movement, chosen as the European anthem, Géricault's "Raft of Medusa" and Dante's "Divine Comedy" come to mind. The Ninth Wave is sound art about the beauty of nature and the tragedy of the human being in it. An extraordinary interplay of colour, dance, film, sound and music performance.
The number Nine stands for the triple triad, the completion, the fulfillment, the totality, beginning and end, the earthly paradise. The number Nine signifies the highest vibration. According to sailor's wisdom, the ocean waves build up in growing triple rhythms, the ninth becomes the most powerful. The Divine Comedy by Dante leads into the nine circles of hell. The Flood in the Age of Deucalion, with which Zeus punishes the first humanity, lasts nine days and nights.
The first trilogy is called Infinite Blue: As the colour of the sky, blue expresses distance, vastness and infinity. As the colour of water, blue symbolizes the soul, the feminine side (of nature), the unconscious, the unknown, longing and clarity. The colour blue stands for eternity and endlessness, the sky, the unfathomable depth of the water and the seas. In ritual ceremonies in magic, blue is used to seek wisdom, reconciliation, understanding, harmony, peace or inner light. The earth is the blue planet, huge oceans span the world and shine in blue clarity.
The second trilogy is called Deep Green: As a colour of hope, green expresses contentment, confidence and fertility. Green is created by mixing blue with yellow, the colour of the sky and water with the colour of light. Thus the colour green combines the colour blue with the emotional warmth of the sun. Both together create growth and enable new life. In addition, in contrast to the colour red, the colour green signals open access, the free path.
The third trilogy is called Zone Red: As the colour of fire and blood, red stands for destruction, danger, anger, seduction and the forbidden. Red is associated with the male sex, with struggle, war and hatred. Red signals forbid access, red signals block the free way.
Images reflect on faces, skin surfaces and bodies of the dancer Aki Tsujita, a living sculpture embodying nine allegories. Only fragments of the images mirroring on her body remain visible. The result are abstract, living paintings in interaction with music and the narrative power of noises.
Fumio Yasuda, who has been working with director and author Stefan Winter for 20 years, has composed the new musical work The Ninth Wave. In total, nine nine-minute movements are created after the Cantata Calm Sea and a Prosperous Voyage, Piano Sonata no. 30 op. 109, String Quartet No. 14, op. 131, Great Fugue, op. 134, Prisoners' choir from the opera Fidelio, 2nd Movement, 5th Symphony, op. 67, Benedictus, Missa Solemnis, op. 123, 2nd Movement, 7th Symphony, op. 92 and 4th movement, Ode to Joy, 9th Symphony, op. 125.
The musical work does not serve as a background or soundtrack to the installation of the living images, but forms a total work of art with the visual world and environmental sounds.
Sounds and living images recall the past and awaken to a new symphony in new movements. In rhythms of three, nine waves grow, each more powerful than the last, the ninth that comes from the depths, is slowly rising, grows to the highest dimension, screams and lets the whole world sink in red sun.
Then everything begins anew.
©2020Neue Klangkunst
