From Carl Orff’s “Carmina Burana” (1936) to hip-hop music of the eighties, it was a big musical step for mankind, but only a small dance step for the Flying Steps. In their new show “Flying Dreams” in the winter garden, the street dance combo dares the big leap through 100 years of music and vaudeville history together with world stars of acrobatics.
“We brought dance and artistry together like no one before,” enthuses Flying Steps boss Vartan Bassil (45), who put the show together with Wintergarten veteran Rodrigue Funke (43). “It was a challenge, but also great fun. We start in the 20s and end up sometime in the future.”
In addition to the breathtaking head-over-jumps and breakneck choreographies of the steps, there will also be beatbox vice world champion Mando, circus star Nathalie Enterline, the Berlin bicycle artist Tim Höfel or the stars of the Suspension Sisters hanging by their pigtails.
A total of 21 artists are not that easy to bring together in times of a pandemic. “Our stars come from New York, the Ukraine and we even had to have some flown in from Mexico,” reveals Rodrigue Funke.
But the effort was worth it and Vartan Bassil recently discovered in ancient film clips that break-dance goes well with the variety show of the Roaring Twenties.
Many decades ago, artists and film comedians à la Buster Keaton practiced backflips and headspins that modern street dance actually thought they had reinvented.
From Charlie Chaplin and classic circus to Michael Jackson’s famous dance steps and the chilled, happy music of Bruno Mars, “Flying Dreams” has something for every taste on its leap through the decades. And as Vartan Bassil mysteriously announces: “We are playing with the unexpected.”
It was important to the Flying Steps that something completely new was created from acrobatics, dance and vaudeville. “We want the worlds to merge,” says Bassil. “One should no longer recognize who is a dancer or an artist. It looks like it’s all of a piece.”
25.2.-19.6., Premiere: 3.3., Potsdamer Straße 96, 47.10-99.90 euros, ☎ 58 84 33, information and tickets