Görlitz dance theater delights with miniature pieces on the green banks of the Neisse
The island behind the Obermühle is a rarely performed venue that is well worth discovering. For example, in the new production by the dance company.
Several Görlitz dancers from the Görlitz Theater have devised their own choreographies. Twelve of their miniatures can be seen in "Choris Voces" at the Obermühle.
Ines Eifler
17.07.2023
[SOURCE]
Görlitz. A young woman reads dreamily in a book and smokes a cigarette while Brentano's "Der Spinnerin Nachtlied" ("The Spinner's Night Song") begins to move, assuming shape and finally settling into its place on the armchair. The words of the romantic poem are enveloped in spherical sounds by Arvo Pärt.
The small scene was devised by Chinese dancer Jun Wang with a choreography full of unusual elements that have not often been seen in the dance theater in Görlitz.
This applies to most of the twelve miniatures that make up the dance evening “Choris Voces”, which premiered on July 14 on the island behind the Obermühle directly on the Neisse. This time, the choreographies bear the individual signatures of the dancers.
Dancers create their own pieces
Some of them dance their own pieces, such as Elise de Heer, known as the male puppet in "Momo", who dances a humorous and thought-provoking piece about illusions, conflicts and role attributions in relationships together with Cesare Di Laghi. Or Eefje van den Bergen, who not only lends fascinating form to Brentano's poem in Jun Wang's piece. Together with Jacob Borchert Vahlun, she also brings her own story to the stage with modern, partly oriental-sounding adaptations of songs from Schubert's "Winterreise".
The music to which the dancers move is almost always in German, which, while in keeping with the season's motto "Germany, Germany", was a requirement, must have been a challenge for the young choreographers. The members of the company come from almost ten different countries, most of them are under or around thirty and it is probably not the preferred choice for any of them to listen to German vocal music.
But this encounter of often somewhat older music with dance leads to small fantasy-filled masterpieces that are at times poetic and thoughtful, at times radiate pure joie de vivre, at times tell comically bizarre stories or deal with surprisingly original everyday themes ranging from brushing teeth to toothache. But they always have their own language and reveal the artistic diversity of dance theater.
Pas de deux in vinyl and underpants
The dancers are transformed into loving and quarrelling couples and into teams brimming with give and take. Into figures with shining baubles on their heads, who create a "perpetuum mobile" to the music of the Comedian Harmonists, into men dancing a pas de deux in vinyl and underpants. Or to fleeting daydreams that fill our lives and yet endure only for a brief time. And all of them together show how transformable, magnificent, but also vulnerable and lost human beings are.
Swifts and bats fly along
Both the more silent and the jocular miniatures are well received by the premiere audience: from the start, created by the theater's youth dance club, led by dancer and “Choris Voces” choreographer Gilda De Vecchis, to the final piece full of ideas, colors and lights.
The music evokes memories of things long unheard, whether folk songs such as "Die Gedanken sind frei" ("Thoughts are free") or songs by Hermann van Veen in rare concert recordings. The beauty of many German-language compositions, whether by Schubert, Schumann, Mahler or Reger – often in a different setting to the original – often becomes even more apparent when combined with danced narratives than when listening to them alone.
And the surrounding nature also provides a multi-layered perception on this evening, when pairs of ducks fly over the Neisse, the last swifts screech through the air or bats flutter between the stage and the audience.
Further performances on July 19, 20 and 21, each at 8 p.m. in the Obermühle. Tickets: 03581 474747, service@g-h-t.de