MANFRED FISCHBECK on LUNGTA

It was an honor for me and the Group Motion Dance Company to be invited into the creation of Lung-Ta (The Windhorse) and to provide the dimension of dance to this amazing collaboration.

The choreography for the piece was developed in closely following the structure of the musical and visual compositions.  Although using essentially an abstract movement language, the dance took inspiration from the imagery and the sounds of the Tibetan Buddhist music, art, and symbolism such as the prayer flags, the windhorse, the iconography of the clouds, sword, and flower, mudras of Tibetan Buddhist prayers, the ideas of the ‘peaceful and wrathful,’ and the deities of wisdom, compassion, and action.  Along the prana threads that pervade Andrea’s music and Maureen’s prayer flag paintings, the creation of the dance unfolded organically with the breath of the music.  Incorporating at one point the use of Tibetan drums and at the end the movement with authentic Nepalese scarves into the formation of an embodied prayer flag – the dance understands itself and the entire work as a prayer for global peace.

We are grateful to Andrea and Maureen and the Network for New Music and the spirit energy of Lo Monthang to be a part of this work.