By Erin Garber-Pearson and Caroline Miller

Aber was conceived as an exploration of loss through the lens of aerial dance and classical music. The Brahm’s requiem strikes a balance between the grand and eternal concept of death, and the more personal concept of loss.

Movement 5, “Ihr habt nun Traurigkeit,” is the most intimate moment of the whole requiem, focusing on the soprano soloist and hope in loss. The text means roughly, your are sad now, but we will see each other again, have comfort.

As collaborators, we wanted the wonder of two people who once knew each other in life, finding each other again in a between-life state. Their connection across the distance is created by the physicality of vertical space, and the story of their meeting again. The lost loved one looms above, unknowable and unreachable in death. Through the song, the singer is able to summon her friend, glimpse her again, and acknowledge the loss face-to-face. In this interstice her lost one may support her again, emotionally and in our piece, physically.

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