Nederlands Dans Theater

After the overwhelming success of Nederlands Dans Theater’s performances in 2015, the company returns to Haus der Berliner Festspiele in Berlin, showing yet again a wide varied programme. NDT strongly believes in her company's live experience and therefore offers the Berlin audience a diverse evening of four works, all of which in their own way leave a big impact in the theatre: “Safe as Houses” (2001) by house choreographers Sol León and Paul Lightfoot, “Woke up Blind” (2016) by Associate Choreographer Marco Goecke, “The Statement” (2016) by Associate Choreographer Crystal Pite and “The missing door” (2013) by Gabriela Carrizo. The evening emphasizes both the classical modern lines of the NDT dancers as well as their exceptional theatrical qualities. The Berlin performances will be a testament of a company that not only focuses on finding and developing the best dance talents in the world, but also captures a range of challenging dance languages through the biggest and most prominent choreographers in contemporary dance.

<h2>Woke up Blind</h2>

The songs “You and I” and “The way young lovers do” by Jeff Buckley, who died tragically and young, deal with love in different ways: the first is slow, with very stretched-out vocals; the second has fast, almost hectic guitar accompaniment. Both songs form the basis for Marco Goecke’s choreography “Woke up Blind”. The two female and five male dancers are drawn into an acoustic world in which they exel in contesting with Buckley’s vocal power and his frenetic guitar sounds. Like young lovers, they throw themselves into the unknown regardless of the consequences, driven purely by longing. In “Woke up Blind”, Goecke has once again managed to reach the core of human emotions through pure, highly complex movement.

<h2>The Statement</h2>

In light of current events, the topicality of “The Statement” is probably what is most striking about Crystal Pite’s work, as the expression of the characters and their use of language are very much linked to our time. The piece could be considered a play, based on a script written by Jonathon Young that is expressed by four dancers that share a heated conversation around a conference table, symbolizing a corporate environment. Control, moral conflicts, responsibility and the inability to escape make “The Statement” a gripping piece that offers the audience a captivating wedge of realism.

<h2>The missing door</h2>

In a constant search for crossovers between dance, theatre, art and life, Carrizo stages a powerful and risk-taking performance in which dancers are challenged to delve into apparent characters, requiring an extremely high sensitivity and compassion of the dancers.
By intertwining fantasy and reality, Carrizo shows two parallel dimensions in this creation. We are witnessing the last minutes of life, which take place in the twilight zone between life and death. The dying man anxiously tries to find their way through the intricate maze of his thoughts. While soundscapes of everyday sounds turn into lost rhythms, the man performs a lonely battle with time, space, and those who are absent.

<h2>Safe as Houses</h2>

“Safe as Houses” is inspired by the Chinese Book of Changes “I Ching” and created to Bach’s scores. The work reflects on the reliance to the physical environment and ultimately on the survivability of the soul.