Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm

The award-winning choreographer and director Laurent Chétouane turns his attention to Igor Stravinsky’s epochal modern musical masterpiece. He poses a controversial question in an era of assiduous efforts at integration: How can one allow the foreign to remain foreign, instead of stealing its foreignness by way of integration and assimilation? Our inability to allow the foreign to maintain its different identity becomes the choreography’s point of departure. Given the successful integration of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring in our cultural canon, a choreographic and visual “sacrifice” of Le Sacre du Printemps itself becomes necessary. In a musical field of tension between Stravinsky’s work and a new composition by Leo Schmidthals, Chétouane develops a vision that enables a coexistence with the foreign on the basis of its non-representability: the sacrifice of Le Sacre du Printemps as a new ritual for the foreign that is allowed to remain so.

Choreography: Laurent Chétouane * Composition: Igor Strawinsky, Leo Schmidthals * With Joséphine Evrard, Kathryn Enrigth, An Kaler, Senem Gökçe Oğultekin, Matthieu Burner, Joris Camelin, Charlie Fouchier * Production: Sacré GbR * Co-production: Ruhrtriennale 2012, PACT Zollverein Essen, Tanzquartier Wien, Theater Bremen, Rencontres chorégraphiques de Seine-Saint-Denis (France), Kaaitheater Brüssel, Kampnagel Hamburg * Supported by the German Federal Cultural Foundation and the Mayor of the City of Berlin – Senate Chancellery – Department of Culture * A performance of the Künstlerhaus Mousonturm in cooperation with the Alte Oper Frankfurt * The performances are made possible by the NATIONAL PERFORMANCE NETWORK.