For the first time Sasha Waltz develops a dance piece based on the structure of a classical music composition. The music will be performed live on stage together with vocal accompaniment of four »Schubert-Lieder«. The dance like the music create in a subtle way emotional states between weightless floating and being off balance. Sasha Waltz researches in her work the existential questions of the human body with its vulnerability and beauty. Dance at its most riveting, at once unmasking, manipulating, and ultimately exalting in the innumerable aspects that make us human.
Cast
Direction
Choreography – Sasha Waltz
Stage – Thomas Schenk, Sasha Waltz
Costumes – Christine Birkle
Light – Martin Hauk
Dance, Choreography
Delphine Gaborit
Todd McQuade
Sasa Queliz
Zaratiana Randriananteneina
Orlando Rodriguez
Xuan Shi
Niannian Zhou
Piano
Cristina Marton
Song
Judith Simonis
Repetition
Claudia de Serpa Soares
The piece has been developed by and with the dancers Maria Marta Colusi, Cl?mentine Deluy, Juan Kruz Diaz de Garaio Esnaola, Luc Dunberry, Michal Mualem, Claudia de Serpa Soares and Xuan Shi
A production of Schaub?hne am Lehniner Platz Berlin presented by Sasha Waltz & Guests.
A coproduction with the Teatro Comunale di Ferrara.
Sasha Waltz & Guests is funded by Hauptstadtkulturfonds and Land Berlin.
World premiere – 17.04.2004
After four years of bold and prickly experiment, all of it performed to punishingly minimalist scores, German choreographer Sasha Waltz has turned lyrical. Impromptus is a satisfying 75 minutes of intimacy and evocation. Instead of large and, because pf Waltz’s peculiar demands, variosly skilled corps at the Schaub?hne, this showcases seven of her dancers, two pianists and a soprano. The space is also much smaller than usual: the stage is split and slightly raked, the set consists merely of a large parallelogram hanging above it. The music is five pieces form Schubert’s shimmeringly beautiful piano cycle of 1827 and four songs. Three brilliantly executed duets mingle with the rarefied stage-business Waltz relishes. She’s always dealt more in outlandish imagery than choreographic exactitude, eschewing delicacy. Just as we reach the end of »Des M?dchens Klage«, sung commandingly by a barefooted, red-maned Judith Simonis two dancers squelch on in waterlogged gumboots. During »Der Doppelg?nger« meanwhile, Maria Marta Colusi and Clementine Deluy indulge naked, in a lesbian mud- bath...
»Impromptus« is never less than absorbing; its seven dancers are on top form.
Financal Times, James Woodall
