Dance-theatre and improvisation techniques hold no secrets for her. Sasha Waltz belongs to a generation of choreographers whose background and eclectic, international training allow them to fuse both major tendencies of contemporary dance. But she started out as a choreographer in her very own way, notably after having worked with Frans Poelstra and Mark Tomkins. In 1993, together with Jochen Sandig, she founded the Sasha Waltz & Guests Company. From her very first productions she showed her taste for hybrid images or off beat social chronicles, like her famous Allee der Kosmonauten (Cosmonaut Lane) (1996), inspired from life in Berliner council flats, or Na Zemlje (1998), a German-Russian show.
As Artistic Co-director of the Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz (Berlin) with the stage director Thomas Ostermeier from 1999 to 2003, her work shifted to the body and its representations in a trilogy made up of: Körper (Body), S (2000) and noBody (2002). In 2006, she moved into a new space in Berlin, “Radialsystem V”, a refurbished former pumping station.
At the Avignon Festival, Sasha Waltz staged Na Zemlje and Zweiland in 1999, noBody in the Courtyard of Honour in 2002 and Impromptus in 2004.
In insideout, Sasha Waltz turns things and people inside out in two ways: she shows the hidden side, holds the other side of the coin up to the light, and places her performers' inner worlds centre stage and explores their “interior”.
The two words of the title inside and out are welded into one. Is this to be taken as an abolition of frontiers? Probably. The Berliner choreographer has long dreamt of bringing dance closer to the public. In 2003, her wish materialized in the shape of a giant and spectacular stage design. A multi-level architectural structure made up of multiple boxes and rooms, niches and windows, constructed in earth, grass lawns, metal and wood, like a kind of global village.
The public moves around freely inside this space like at an exhibition or a museum. As the spectator wanders through it, he elaborates his or her own show. They can follow or let themselves be surprised by the ten musicians and the twenty actors and dancers inside. They come from all over the world and perform solo, in duos or trios to a score especially composed by the English composer Rebecca Saunders. Each intimate space offers an enigmatic tale where spectator and performer discover, pass by, brush past each other and astonish one another.
This proximity is also an opportunity for Sasha Waltz to question, through her performers' biographies, the identities, the lifestyles and ways of interacting induced in city jungles and by new forms of cosmopolitanism. This is one of the choreographer's principal themes. The majority of her creations, whether abstract or lyrical, tackle the issue of the body and its environment. In this show, it is in the shape of a unique, shared and surprising experience.
Distribution
Sasha Waltz & Guests / musikFabrik
mise en scène, chorégraphie et conception: Sasha Waltz
musique composée par: Rebecca Saunders
danse et chorégraphie: Mikel Aristegui, Jiri Bartovanec, Maria Marta Colusi, Juan Kruz Diaz de Garaio Esnaola, Luc Dunberry, Charlotte Engelkes, Nicola Mascia, Michal Mualem, Maria Öhman, Manuel Alfonso Pérez Torres, Sasa Queliz, Mata Sakka, Paolo dos Santos, Claudia de Serpa Soares, Xuan Shi, Takako Suzuki, Laurie Young, Matan Zamir, Sigal Zouk-Harder
musiciens de musikFabrik: Tatiana Koleva, Ulrich Löffler, Adam Ørvad, Adrian Pereyra, Carl Rosman, Sava Stoianov, Michael Tiepold, Hannah Weirich, Dirk Wietheger, Susanne Zapf
scénographie: Thomas Schenk, Sasha Waltz
vidéo: Philip Bußmann
lumières: Martin Hauk
conception scientifique: Karl Stocker
administration: Jochen Sandig
Production
production: Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz (Berlin) présentée par Sasha Waltz & Guests (Berlin)
en coproduction avec Graz 2003 - Capitale culturelle de l'Europe et steirischerherbst
avec le soutien de la Fondation culturelle fédérale allemande
présenté avec le partenariat: du ministère des Affaires étrangères d'Allemagne et du Goethe-Institut
Ce spectacle est accueilli :au Festival d'Avignon sous le haut patronage de M. Klaus Wowereit, maire régnant de Berlin et Plénipotentiaire de la République fédérale d'Allemagne pour la Coopération culturelle avec la France
navette au départ d'Avignon et buvette sur place