Sacre The Rite of Spring
Stravinskys Sacre has strong roots in the old beliefs of pagan Russia, beliefs that involved sacrificing a girl to the earth or getting another to dance herself to death to ensure the preservation of the community. With Nijinskys stamping, scraping, shaking choreography, this piece brought primal violence - within the ritual - to the symbolic space of the stage. But Sacre is an abstract work of art, not a ritual, a reflection rather than an actual ceremonial. By staging absence, Raimund Hoghe also breaks with the ritual. He makes us aware of the Judaeo-Christian idea of the artist as a representational figure and so, like Nijinsky, dares to reveal these foundations of our culture. With his body he is, like the sacrificial victim, a scapegoat of society, but he refuses to be sacrificed. As in the last scene of Nijinskys choreography, where the curtain falls on the raised sacrifice, he refuses to leave the stage: wont abdicate the dancers place, to which he would traditionally be refused admittance. Hoghes Sacre - The Rite of Spring is framed at beginning and end by the voice of Igor Stravinsky. It vibrates and pulsates with sex, albeit never offensively, is electric with the complex desires of a young man. Hoghe does not disregard the rules of theatre as a symbolic place, but opens it up to suit his requirements. Like Le sacre du printemps, Hoghes dance theatre is contemplation on the ritual function, and emancipatory power, of theatre. ballettanz 2004
Raimund Hoghe was born in Wuppertal and began his career by writing portraits of outsiders and celebrities for the German weekly newspaper Die Zeit. He has been working on his own theatre pieces for various dancers and actors since 1989. In 1994 he produced his first solo for himself, Meinwrts, which together with the subsequent Chambre spare (1997) and Another Dream (2000), made up a trilogy on the 20th century. From 1980-90 he worked as dramaturge for Pina Bauschs Tanztheater Wuppertal, which also became the subject matter for two more books. Hoghe frequently works for television on projects such as Der Buckel, his 1997 hour-long self-portrait for WDR (West German Radio and Television). He has been awarded several prizes, including the Deutscher Produzentenpreis fr Choreografie in 2001.
Production: Raimund Hoghe (Dsseldorf)
Coproduction: Montpellier Danse 04 (Montpellier), Theater im Pumpenhaus (Mnster)
With the support of: Kaaitheater (Brussels), STUK (Leuven), Groupe Kam La (Paris) and Goethe Institute