Katinka Kleijn and Lia Kohl perform Water on the Bridge, a devised theatre and music piece, in and around the Eckhart Park pool in Chicago.

The performance represented the first full-scale iteration of a project the two cellists have been working on since 2016, incorporating ‘elements of theatre, movement, and improvisation, as well as a rich sonic landscape drawn from both water and cellos’.

‘In all its forms, Water on the Bridge explores the baggage that we all carry with us: emotional, spiritual, physical, and the ways we nurture it, struggle with it, and let it go.’

The artists are keen to clarify that they only used instruments that were beyond viable repair: ‘However they might appear, all of these cellos were unplayable when the artists got them and they continue to be unplayable. The few cellos they found that could be fixed up have been fixed and donated to schools, since they want people to experience the joy (that they share) of playing the cello. The others were trash and have been turned into art.’

All photos by Todd Rosenberg

Topics