The applauded dance company returns to Barcelona with ‘In C’, one of the pearls of the season
The acclaimed company Sasha Waltz returns to Barcelona with ‘In C’, one of the pearls of the season. This piece created during the pandemic, inspired by Terry Riley’s revolutionary minimalist work from 1964 that gives the title to the choreography, is very different from his previous works. The eleven dancers who perform ‘In C’ at the Mercat de les Flors (from April 7 to 9) they follow a recording by the North American group Bang in a Can, a specialist in minimalism and post-minimalism, which includes a set of eleven instruments.
‘In C’ is a semi-randomized score with 53 short phrases and some instructions to arrange them openly, though they may overlap. If performed by a large number of musicians, the piece generates a moving harmony. Waltz has transferred the idea from the score to dance.
Freedom is also one of the key factors in this choreography conceived with a fixed structure of 53 movements or phrases that the performers have to follow chronologically, respecting some rules designed by Waltz. For example, it allows the dancers to repeat the figures but without straying too far from what the rest of the group is doing. “They can’t be more than five sentences behind the rest,” says the 59-year-old German creator. It’s about everyone choosing. what variations to make at each moment thinking about how to contribute the maximum To the group.
The result is a different work each time. Although the script only occupies two pages, as he showed, the possibilities are many in a work that is not easy to execute. “It’s a physical and mental challenge. because the dancers are on stage all the time creating a composition that is created while dancing. There are some rigid choreographic rules but they have freedom”, she recalls. “This work unites my two worlds as a dancer and a choreographer: improvisation and choreography”.
The piece was created during the pandemic. “I needed to keep creating and for the dancers to stay active and fit, to maintain their physical stamina.” She created movement units that allowed them to work individually wherever they were.
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He worked with one of the interpreters who lived far away via Zoom. That gave him the idea to do tutorials that have allowed the piece to be developed in numerous places no need to move. “I only ask the universities, the dancers or the schools that use them to send me a video of the piece they make at the end. At the moment there are two schools in India that are working with it,” he says happily. Discovering this new formula is a good thing about the pandemic. For her, ‘In C’ “is ideal for teaching children or people who don’t dance because it allows them to understand space, interaction and community work”. Something she does at Radialsystem, the company’s headquarters in Berlin.
Since she created with her husband, Jochen Sandig, the company Sasha Waltz and Guest in 1993, she has made numerous creations with more than 300 collaborators from different disciplines and countries. At the end of the 90’s she joined the directing team of the Schaubuhne in Berlin where he premiered dance-theater pieces such as ‘Körper’. She now she is in front of the Berlin State Ballet. What has changed in your vision of dance since you started? “Dance is always evolving and transforming. I always try to explore other forms. ‘In C’, for example, is a very different piece because it’s abstract, happy and colourful. I hope to convey hope after the gray times of the first pandemic and the current war in Europe. It is a counterpoint to give hope and the desire to move forward.”