Dancing bliss of a summer night in Görlitz

‘Choris Voces’ – a dance evening with short pieces to German-language vocal music by and with the 12 dancers of the dance company, directed by Dan Pelleg and Marko E. Weigert.

DANCE for YOU Magazine

Boris Gruhl

July 12, 2023

[SOURCE]

Twelve world premieres on the grounds of the Görlitz Obermühle on the Neisse.

The Görlitz theatre has been closed since the water damage on 2 November last year. When those portentous floorboards will be danced upon again is unclear.

Yet the theatre persists, as does the dancing, albeit at various venues in the city, which is not entirely untypical for Görlitz: the historic department store hosted music theatre, dancing also took place in the former synagogue, and now on the grounds of the Obermühle.

This [choice of venue], however, had nothing to do with the water damage. Dance in this location, in the open air, as on the evening of the premiere, in a summer night's muted magic, always seeks out special places at the end of the season. Dan Pelleg and Marko E. Weigert, who have been successfully directing the dance company for 12 years now and have been able to achieve avid popularity with audiences, have established this as a good tradition.

For here, two artists have come together who are able to blend with each other quite different forms and traditions of contemporary dance. Dan Pelleg comes from Israel, from the Bathsheva Dance Company. Marko E. Weigert trained at the Palucca School in Dresden and additionally in Leipzig. Both founded the Wee Dance Company in Berlin.

And so, 12 years ago, at a municipal theatre, a connection between the independent dance scene and the more traditional structures began. This was soon well received by audiences, especially young theatre-goers. As dance then began to merge more and more intensively with musical theatre, completely new audience groups could be won over. Not least with formats such as those of the current evening: short pieces, largely developed by the dancers with and for each other and brought into choreographic form.