A hundred years after The Rite of Spring had opened to the public, Sasha Waltz reinterprets Stravinsky’s work, which marked the beginning of Modernism. The public present at the 1913 premiere was shocked by the courage and violence of the ballet. We cannot say the same thing about Sasha Waltz’s show. The choreographer doesn’t try to step ahead of The Rite… but rather recreates a piece of work that is very powerful in reminding how time changes positions and what was once Modern is now seen as Classic. Therefore, what the public saw is an homage to Stravinsky and a way of connecting to the past: is it still possible to do that, after 100 years that were so strongly dominated by progress and change?

Sasha Waltz is a German choreographer, working with different artists and expanding towards architecture, as well. If her latest works are more classical, both in choosing the scores as well as the way in which the dancers move, at the beginning of her career the choreographer was more experimental. For example, she created Travelogue-Trilogy together with her company, inspired by Buster Keaton movies. The energy of the show made it so famous, as well as the idea of a body that repeats the same movements without loosing its focus and intensity. The show toured internationally, to the critics’ acclaim:

photo sashawaltz.de

As mentioned before, the choreographer is constantly interested in different artistic areas, as with Continu it is very visible her influence, since there is a structuring of the space in that performance. And when we say that it’s not about the scenography, but about the large gestures, dancers moving at the same time, creating a powerful visual and energetic structure, thus reminding of architecture. In her career, the choreographer seems to have moved from more experimental works, to performances that are more classic, where she is interested in key elements like movement and music, as if she got to the basis of choreography.

Her creative force changed through the years. Her trilogy Korper, S, noBody questions the body itself and searches new means of relating to it. There is the famous part where the dancer would say a phrase about her legs while she would be moving her head. This also questions the power of language and what it comes with it once some words are so well established.

photo bernd-uhlig-fotografie.com

Sasha Waltz made a film, Architectural Dialogues, where she underlined the importance of the space where the dancers perform.The unconventional spaces are Neues Museum in Berlin (archictectural studio David Chipperfield and Julian Harrap), the Jewish Museum in Berlin (architect Daniel Libeskind) and MAXXI National Museum of the XXI Century Arts in Roma (architect Zaha Hadid). The strong architecture makes the dances aware of where they are performing, thus changing the space itself with their own bodies.

photo post-new.com