VER

VER is a new interdisciplinary creation by The Freestyle Orchestra in which a classical concert is completely intertwined with contemporary circus vocabulary, inspired by the recomposed sound world of Max Richter. The title 'VER' alludes to both 'truth' and the Latin for 'spring' — highlighting rebirth and nature's cyclical patterns — as well as referencing Ver Sacrum, the magazine of the Art Nouveau Secession movement in Vienna; a key principle being the belief that all artforms co-exist and should be co-exhibited as a 'Gesamtkunstwerk'.

In 2023, The Freestyle Orchestra was commissioned to create the opening of the Wiener Festwochen — a six-minute piece integrating all their separate artistic disciplines, set to a short excerpt of Max Richter's 'Spring' using looping techniques to create their own remix. VER is the full-length iteration of this concept.

Through the signature combination of contemporary circus and classical music, VER explores humanity's evolving relationship with nature — once perceived as boundless and bountiful, now fragile and vulnerable. Through the cyclical building and breaking of physical environments and shifting group formations, the work mirrors ecological processes of growth, disruption and renewal. The tension between individual and collective presence unfolds in both movement and music, revealing the delicate balance between autonomy and interdependence.

The project also investigates the parallels and divergences between the musician's body and the circus body: discipline, virtuosity, breath, risk, repetition and expressivity. By further distilling the aim to physicalise music, the work seeks to render sound visible and movement audible, where gesture becomes score and physical action generates resonance.

VER incorporates spatial audio systems that respond to and reflect physical and circus movement, allowing sound to travel, fracture and reform in dialogue with bodies in space. Emphasising the body as both instrument and resonator, the performance expands the sonic field beyond traditional instrumentation — an immersive, sensorial landscape where music and movement continuously construct and deconstruct one another.