Ballet BC always presents a diverse repertoire and is deeply committed to fostering creation and collaboration. The Canadian powerhouse of contemporary dance returns to Europe with a programme featuring three choreographic works that showcase its trademark blend of physical prowess and emotional depth.
Crystal Pite’s Frontier is a mesmerising exploration of the unknown, drawing parallels between dark matter in the universe and the mysteries of human consciousness. Ballet BC’s artistic director, Medhi Walerski, presents SWAY, an intimate ode to resilience and collective hope, inspired by Emily Dickinson’s poetry. Finally, Shahar Binyamini’s BOLERO X offers a fresh interpretation of Ravel’s iconic composition, where twenty dancers celebrate the power of dance through compelling repetition and collective energy.
March 28th – 30th, 2025 Festival dansa metropolitana, Barcelona November 17th, 2025 TANZINOLTEN, Olten April 3rd – 4th, 2026 Théâtre de la Cité internationale, Paris April 14th, 2026 Le 140, Brussels April 17th, 2026 Internationales Bonner Tanzsolofestival, Bonn 60 minutes
In his new solo, Thomas Hauert intends to deepen a creative process already present in his last two creations: making psychology, inner life, emotions and the unconscious a driving force behind movement. The starting point for Troglodyte is a kind of complex psychological enigma, expressed in the working title and subtitle of the solo Zaungast/Zaunkönig, focusing on the experience of the position of the outsider, the one who is not part of the group, the one who looks on from the outside. Zaungast is a German word that describes someone who attends an event to which they were not invited, behind the fence (literally: “guest of the fence”). Zaunkönig, literally “king of the fence”, is the German name for the wren, a small songbird. Tiny but kingly at the same time, it is imagined on the fence, ‘staying on the fence’, in the figurative sense of someone who does not take a stand, does not make up their mind and does not commit themselves accordingly.
The word troglodyte originally refers to a living creature that inhabits a cave or dwelling dug into the ground, like the little bird Zaunkönig/troglodyte. The term Troglodyte also sounds like an insult, one associated with the “Cave Man”, the boorish, uneducated, coarse man.
October 12th, 2024 Theater Bonn Opera House, Bonn October 16th-19th, 2024 Théâtre de la Ville, Paris October 25th-26th, 2024 Teatro Central, Seville October 30th, 2024 Teatro Ariosto, Reggio Emilia November 5th-6th, 2024 International Theater Amsterdam, Amsterdam November 13th, 2024 Le théâtre de Saint-Nazaire, Saint-Nazaire November 15th-16th, 2024 Théâtre de Cornouaille, Quimper November 21st, 2024 Le Quartz, Bres July 30th, 2025 Civitanova Danza, Civitanova Marche August 6th, 2025 ImPulsTanz, Vienna 75 minutes incl. intermission
TAO Dance Theateris a Chinese dance company based in Beijing. Founded in 2008 by the choreographers Tao Ye, Duan Ni and by the producer Wang Hao, the company has an innovative approach to movement, a body technique known as “Circular Movement System”. At its roots is the idea of pure dance, achieved through the “ritualistic repetition of the body’s natural movements”, invoking the spectators’ capacity to concentrate on the essential nature of the repeated gesture, devoid of any ornament.
TAO Dance Theatre’s choreographic Series of Numbers began in 2008 and has been invited onto the most important stages of the world, from the Lincoln Center Art Festival of New York to Sadler’s Wells Theatre in London, as well as the Sydney Opera House and the Théâtre de la Ville in Paris. Its minimalist aesthetic further codified Tao Ye and Duan Ni’s method, achieving an exasperated repetition that seeks truth in the body.
13 and 14 explore different themes, respectively involving 13 and 14 dancers on stage following the habitual pattern of the series. 13develops along a three-part scheme, exploring three different ways that bodies relate: in the solo, the duet, the ensemble. Starting from the unity of the ensemble, the choreographer progressively fragments the dancers into different formations between ralenti and sudden accelerations, reflecting the “complexity of the physical world, where one is continuously colliding, coming together and apart, falling and bouncing back” within a choreographic form that is both rigorous and open.
A study of rhythm, 14relies on rapid changes of movement that bring out the full range of possibilities between stasis and movement. As the result of a complex dynamism, 14takes the vocabulary of the “Circular Movement System” to the extreme: Points, lines and planes that intersect in space bring the work back to pure movement, deploying the full range of possibilities”.
