source:theguardiancom
Berlin-based choreographer Sasha Waltz has often worked on , so it’s no surprise to find a highly staged, sometimes highly stylised musical sensibility pervading this triple bill of dance works. In L’Après-midi d’un faune, the shapely designs and flat colours of the dancers’ stylish swimwear echo both the painterly backdrop and the arch eroticism of the choreography, in which you can almost visualise the languorous limbs and quickening pulses held within Debussy’s score. There are chases and flights, couplings and triangulations, arched spines and crossed calves. One man peels plasters from another’s back as if stripping skin; a woman outlines her mouth with lipstick, and a man runs a finger over her legs as if tracing a drawing. It’s a very measured, self-contained work, carefully composed yet strangely seductive – more an image than an expression of sensuality.

Scène d’Amour – an excerpt from Waltz’s full-length Roméo et Juliette – is more conventional, a love duet to romantic music by Berlioz. It’s also more naturalistic and more intimate. Lorena Justribó Manion and Ygal Tsur coil and encircle each other, with tenderness and without melodrama: their lifts are low, their arms softened. It’s beautifully phrased and there are lovely moments – Manion idly twining her ankle about Tsur’s wrist – but it leans heavily on the music for effect: the woodwind’s fluttering breath, the pull and swell of strings.

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.
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source:aestheticamagazinecom
This autumn Sadler’s Wells, London, welcomes choreographer Sasha Waltz and her tribute to Igor Stravinsky’s ballet masterpiece, The Rite of Spring, to the stage. Celebrating the centenary of Stravinsky’s renowned piece that caused such scandal in 1913 Paris, Waltz’s reimagining draws on the savage forces that inspired the Russian composer 100 years ago. Entitled Sacre, this new performance sees dancers throw themselves into the complex, angular rhythms of the frenetic musical composition. Performed by 28 dancers the UK premiere of Sacre is completed by Waltz’s interpretation of Scène d’Amour (from Roméo et Juliette) with music by Berlioz, and Debussy’s L’Après-midi d’un faune.

A: The UK premiere of Sacre at Sadler’s Wells is fast approaching. What can audiences expect to see, and which key themes are portrayed in the performance?
SW: I am very much looking forward to our performances of Sacre at Sadler’s Wells – one of our company’s important partners. I created my version of Sacre in 2013 and it was, of course, a big challenge to work with this outstanding piece of music that has inspired so many great artists over the past 100 years. To me, one of the key themes is the circle of life, birth and death, which can be associated with the idea of nature. The Rite of Spring and spring itself is related to bursting, to eruption and to eroticism. Rite and sacrifice are at the centre of this cycle – an individual, a woman, is sacrificed in favour of the whole community, to initiate the new beginning, a new life. This relationship between individuals and groups or society has been of great interest to me for quite some time now, and can also be traced in earlier pieces, for example Jagden und Formen (2008) and Continu (2010).

A: Sacre is inspired by Stravinsky’s famous ballet masterpiece. How did the project come about?
SW: The decision to create Sacre took me more than a year and followed two invitations – firstly from Michel Franck of the Théâtre de Champs-Elysées, and then from Valery Gergiev and the Mariinsky Theatre, where the production premiered. When I started to work on Sacre, I realised its key themes contained questions and notions I had already explored (in a way, circled around) thematically, but also in terms of the music. I knew I wanted to present a large group, a community, partly because the energy of the music is so high and powerful that I needed to find some kind of physical counterbalance in the bodies. I wanted this group to be like a clan, with different generations, which was why I decided to include children as well. The notion of the female and motherhood, explored in previous work, for example in Medea, can also be found in Sacre. As part of my research, I travelled to Kolkata India, to deepen my understanding of rituals and rites, which was a deeply touching and moving experience.

A: The piece captures the juxtaposing sentiments of aggression and delicacy. Do these elements flow naturally throughout your own choreography or do they stem from external influences?
SW: Moments of violence and delicacy can already be found in Stravinsky’s composition. There is this overwhelming energy in the music, but at times small and delicate, almost tender, moments evolve. This contrast of elements resides in spring itself, and maybe also in the way the members of a group, as an ensemble of individuals, treat each other.

A: Sacre is accompanied by Scène d’Amour with music by Berlioz, and Debussy’s L’Après-midi d’un faune. How do these composers and their music contribute to the triple-bill presentation?
SW: This evening was devised musically in cooperation with Daniel Barenboim who also conducted the first of these Sacre evenings at Berliner Staatsoper. The idea was to show the interesting developments of that time: going from Berlioz to Debussy to Stravinsky, you can hear the dawn of Modernism. The two pieces by Berlioz and Debussy are much more delicate, however, in Stravinsky’s composition, you can perceive a historical change, the eruption of something new.
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source:konzertkritikopernkritikberlinwordpresscom
Es ist eine gute Idee, Sasha Waltz ranzulassen.

Premiere Staatsoper Berlin. Der Abend heißt Sacre. Zu sehen sind Debussys L’Après-Midi d’un Faune, Berlioz‘ Scène d’Amour und Strawinskys Sacre. Was übertragen so viel heißt wie: Erst regt sich die Natur, dann die Liebe, dann kommt die Katastrophe. Nüscht is, wie der Berliner sagt. Sasha Waltz war zwischenzeitlich extrem hip. Spätestens seit Dido & Aeneas ist sie in der Höhenluft der Hochkultur daheim.

Ich erinnere mich der erzählerischen Präzision Berliner Sasha-Waltz-Stücke, die einen weit forttrugen: Dido, Medea, Matsukaze an der Staatsoper, Travelogue I, Impromptus und anderes im Radialsystem. Im Schillertheater frage ich mich während des mit grellen Badetrikots gespickten L’Après-Midi d’un Faune ständig, ob ich mit meiner Assoziation an Picassos posierende Badehosenjungs richtig liege oder nicht. Ich finde L’Après-Midi d’un Faune nicht gut. Die Scène d’Amour bietet klassisch orientiertes Tanztheater (Emanuela Montanari, Antonino Sutera). Aber wie gut spielt die Staatskapelle hier. In der Pause betrachte ich den simsenden Guido Westerwelle.

>>>> Hier Kritik von Sasha Waltz‘ Sacre 2016 lesen

Sacre du Printemps. Hier sehe ich jene Sasha Waltz, deren Markenzeichen zügellose Rudelbildung und experimentelle Gruppendynamik sind. Ein Kuddelmuddel kreisender Formationen, eine ganz spezielle Kinetik karger Körper. Das Schönste: Die Tänzer liegen in Kreisformation auf dem Boden, regen sich, recken die Arme, wachsen wie Pflanzen im Zeitraffer empor. Aber es gibt Kritikpunkte. 1. Unübersichtliche Grüppchenbildung. Es ist zu viel los auf der Bühne. Mir fehlt Konzentration. 2. Visuelle Härten mildert Waltz durch Einbindung in schönheitliche Tableaus. 3. Eine vage antikisierende Atmosphäre. Sprich: Eine direkte Verbindung zu meinem Herzen fehlt.

Sacre hin, Waltz her – es war ein guter Abend. Mit einigen Abstrichen wie gesagt.

Maria Marta Colusi tanzt das Frühlingsopfer präzis und packend.

Die Staatskapelle… spielt schön. Sie zwitschert Debussy wie der Kreuzberger sein Sonntagnachmittagbierchen auf der Admiralbrücke. Daniel Barenboim lässt bei Debussy den Wagner raus (Hitzewallungen der Streicher, untermalt vom Schnaufen des armwedelnden Dirigenten). Das Solo-Horn: leichtfüßig, vollmundig, schwärmerisch. Ein G-E-N-U-S-S sind die Celli bei Berlioz. Mann!, das warme Plopp-Plopp-Plopp der Pizzicati. Ist das Seele? Ja. Barenboims Staatskapelle spielt Strawinskys Sacre mit Herz, nicht als Orchesterstudie in Brutalo-Manier, als den ihn die Philharmoniker gerne spielen.

Das halbe scheidende und zukünftige Kabinett war anwesend. Die Pause zwischen Franzosen und Russem hätte allerdings wegfallen können, zwecks Steigerung der Eindringlichkeit.
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source:kmoninfo
Sasha Waltz obtuvo un clamoroso éxito en el 2013 con el estreno de esta nueva coreografía de “La Consagración de la Primavera”, justo 100 años después de que los Ballets Rusos de Diaguilev causaran casi un escándalo con la coreografía de Nijinsky y la música de un rompedor Stravinsky.