KÖRPER

SASHA WALTZ & GUESTS

Sasha Waltz is a leading figure of German dance, the heir apparent of Pina Bausch. She is renowned for appropriating historical sites, for dissecting events, for angrily revealing, in almost burlesque fashion, the failings of reality. Körper, an impressive piece for thirteen dancers and a turning point in her body of work, lies at the very edge of abstraction.

Details

There is no narrative and there are no characters, but rather a wall of flesh, a living metaphor for the turmoil and turbulence of this world. Anatomical bodies, bodies manipulated this way and that – scientifically or surgically, or for mercantile reasons, or bodies become victims of genocide. This is a universe on the verge of surrealism and the absurd, shifting from the epic to the intimate, from the dramatic to the comical in a proliferation of striking images that burst forth from the merely clinical body. And the stark space, stripped to the bare essentials, offers no refuge to the naked, exposed human form. Lending itself to all sorts of metamorphoses, the body is a receptor and a symbol of myriad violations and affronts, a subject/object for all purposes, a depository and creative force for the projected imagination. A magnificent work!

Credits

Direction and Choreography: Sasha Waltz

 Performers and co-choreographers : Davide Camplani, Annette Klar, Lisa Densem, Juan Kruz, Diaz de Garaio Esnaola, Luc Dunberry, Nicola Mascia, Grayson Millwood, Virgis Puodziunas, Claudia de Serpa Soares, Takako Suzuki, Xuan Shi, Laurie Young, Michal Mualem 

Set Design : Sasha Waltz, Heike Schuppelius, Thomas Schenk

Costume Design : Bernd Skodzig

Lighting Design : Valentin Galié, Martin Hauk

Music : Hans Peter Kuhn

Production: Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz (Berlin)

presented by Sasha Waltz & Guests

Coproduction: Théâtre de la Ville (Paris)

With the support of Goethe-Institut Montréal

In association with Place des Arts

Text: Michèle Febvre

English Translation: Neil Kroetsch

Photos: Bernd Uhlig