Meraki

For live piano and pre-recorded track
Duration 12’
Choreography by Daniel de Andrade
First Performed at the EM Forster Theatre, Tonbridge, March 2014

Daniel de Andrade, ballet master and choreographer for Northern Ballet, was commissioned to create a new work for the Ballet Central dancers in the autumn of 2013. He wanted to create something that articulated the extraordinary journey that creative artists, especially dancers, make to become fully-fledged performers. The piece represents that journey, progressing from barely visible individual liminal shapes to a dynamic collective force that is ready to fly into the future.

The music was written over a period of three months, during which time Feeney was engaged in the final preparations for his full length Cinderella for David Nixon, which premiered in December 2013. Although working closely alongside each other at Northern Ballet during this period, it was never particularly easy to take time out with the choreographer, and work on the new BC piece. So quite a lot of the meetings took place via Skype!

The music tries to make the same shape as the choreography, with a very atmospheric opening, spatial polyphony with piano and high digital strings. When the live piano enters, it possesses a warm personal quality, an almost improvisational poetic feel, so that although the journey may be arduous, it is ultimately a profoundly rewarding one.