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Sasha Waltz

Sacre
Sacre is Waltz’s forceful version of The Rite of Spring. The stage is smoke-filled, and a cone of rocks and ash lies centre stage like the remains of a fire. Couples invade the stage, and clump into ragged groups that rupture and re-form: fracturing along gender lines, or splintering into disparate parts. Though she ends up overloading the piece with too many sub-scenes – too many rites, really – Waltz is terrific at simultaneously marshalling and unleashing the wild energies of her dancers, skewering the stage with images of birth, sex and death, of savage conformity and naked revolt.