Sasha Waltz & Guests

Presentation

The only German choreographer to have successfully make a name for herself with that of Pina Bausch, Sasha Waltz assumes the heritage in part, at a theatrical level exacerbated by dance. Körper is a suite of enigmatic and fascinating tableaux, that all have the common denominator of the body in all its states, symbolic, real or imaginary with all its constructions, physical or mental, its dreamlike, poetic and even horrific variations. Sasha Waltz carries us off into a world of visual illusion, where we meet centaurs, tentacular creatures and warriors with disproportionate braids. However, the choreographer also develops an anatomically phantasmagorical world, where movement is based on improbable articulation, unknown orifices and wonderful connections. From this corporeal circus she suddenly makes paradise and hell surge forth; it must be said that the piece draws its origins from an instruction for the inauguration of the Jewish Museum in Berlin. In this show, Sasha Waltz draws a living metaphor of the world, including marvels and catastrophes, but in a sumptuous aesthetic and a dramatic tension of rare intensity with a grandiose set design that uses all the magic of the theatre.

A message from Brigitte Lefevre

Körper is, without doubt, one of Sasha Waltz’s masterpieces. This ballet left its mark on the imagination of the audience and its performers as of its creation.
It is wonderful to be able to present a piece twenty years on. The quality of this piece works with time, gives rise to new interpretations and continues to touch new generations of spectators.

The choreographer

After dance training in Amsterdam and New York, Sasha Waltz founded the company Sasha Waltz & Guests, which she set up in the Sophiensaele in 1996. In 1999, she became a member of the artistic direction of the Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz Berlin until 2004. It was in this framework that she created the trilogy: Körper, S, noBody.

Today, Sasha Waltz is the creator of some twenty choreographical works and productions, including a Romeo and Juliet created in 2007 for the Paris Opera Ballet on the request of Brigitte Lefèvre. Her company is now independent. Her next creation, rauschen, will be presented at the Volksbühne Berlin in March 2019. In parallel to her work as the artistic director for her company, Sasha Waltz will, with Johannes Öhman, take on the co-direction of the Berlin State Ballet for 2019/20.