Descent X Ascent

In the production SUMMA, which he created in 2018 in collaboration with the Cello Octet Amsterdam, a reckoning was made of a world out of balance based on compositions by Arvo Pärt. Nine years later, the collaboration continues with a production set to music by another Baltic composer, Pēteris Vásks from Latvia, who is regarded as one of the most influential and acclaimed contemporary European composers. Vasks' compositions form a musical reflection on the dynamics of opposing forces, such as the eternal repetition of the tides or the relentless oscillation between higher and lower, the sacred and the secular, good and evil. Precisely in a world that is becoming increasingly polarized, it is important to nuance our approach to opposites. 

For DESCENT※ASCENT, the eight cellists of the Cello Octet Amsterdam will share the stage with dancers from the prestigious German dance company Of Curious Nature, for whom Calixto has previously created successful pieces. It is a work in which the fusion of disciplines offers the audience the experience of a ritual, a collective encounter in which public and artists are one and attempt to reconcile their own human paradoxes with one another.