On 29 August Anna Meredith’s Nautilus (2011 arr. 2021) for orchestra appeared as part of Robert Dekkers’ new show Noble Beast for Post:ballet, produced by Art Haus for Burning Man 2023. The performance, conducted by Brad Hogarth, was staged around NOSOTRES by artists Simón Malvaez and Brenden Darby.
Reflecting the ANIMALIA theme of this year’s festival in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert, Noble Beast is “a celebration of our personal and collective journey as we continue shedding our egos and rewilding our beings to discover the noble beast within each of us”. In this respect it tunes in to the propulsive rhythms and heroic swagger of Meredith’s 5-minute fanfare.
In 2016 Robert Dekkers and Post:ballet choreographed Meredith’s 12-minute body percussion piece Handsfree (2012), written for the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain. The same year Dekkers and Meredith also joined forces with The Living Earth Show to create Tassel (to a commissioned Meredith score).
Nautilus has previously been choreographed for The Royal Ballet & London Sinfonietta by Calvin Richardson for the 2019 re-opening of the Linbury Theatre. Widely used in film and media, it has featured in adverts for Prada and in Netflix's Lady Gaga documentary Gaga: Five Foot Two.
The orchestral version of the track from Meredith's debut album Varmints received its world premiere in 2021 from Dalia Stasevska and the Lahti Symphony Orchestra. Her recording of the piece with the BBC Symphony Orchestra will feature on her debut album Dalia's Mixtape, released by Platoon in March 2024.
Stasevska conducted the piece in August 2022 at the Hollywood Bowl with the LA Philharmonic, who also gave its US premiere under the baton of Thomas Adès. Stasevska has conducted the piece with the San Francisco Symphony, BBC Symphony Orchestra, and will return to it in November 2023 with the Seattle Symphony.