By Martina Hafner
The tension is rising at the State Ballet: on Saturday (June 10, 2023, 6 p.m.) the premiere of “Stravinsky” with two works by the composer is coming up at the State Opera.
Firstly “Petruschka” by Marco Goecke. However, after his dog excrement attack on a critic, the choreographer was not allowed to rehearse the piece himself in Berlin. This was mainly done by his assistant Nicole Kohlmann.
The second part is “Frühlingsopfer” by Germany’s most famous choreographer Pina Bausch (1940-2009). With her company she wrote dance history from Wuppertal, her masterpiece to Stravinsky’s “Le Sacre du Printemps” shows a ritual intoxication about rebirth, desire, death.
Unforgotten: the legendary choreographer Pina Bausch Photo: Pina Bausch Foundation
Three ballet masters, who are now broadcasting the choreography in Berlin, explain how the rehearsal works. Solo dancer Arshak Ghalumyan (38) whirls through the hall, arm movements as if he were beating someone, archaic optics. “Open your upper body more, as if someone is calling you from above,” says Kenji Takagi (50), a native of Berlin and a longtime Pina Bausch dancer. He exhales loudly as he demonstrates the movement.
Principal dancer Arshak Ghalumyan during a rehearsal for “Spring Rifle” in the ballet hall Photo: Sven Darmer
Unusual for the predominantly classically trained State Ballet. Azusa Seyama-Prioville (47), who danced the piece during a guest performance in Berlin in 1999, explains: “You have to give yourself completely to the choreography, the ensemble learns the language of Pina Bausch like an alphabet. This will need time.”
By the way, almost nothing is improvised, even the position of the hands is fixed. Pina Bausch paid attention to every detail, according to Scott Jennings (34), who often danced the piece: “There is maybe one percent freedom in the apparent chaos, but everything else is very precise.”
Kenji Takagi adds, “But all the performers have to own the choreography, breathe the piece. It’s like playing Beethoven. The score is fixed, but the interpretation is always different.”
Kenji Takagi, Azusa Seyama-Prioville and Scott Jennings (from left) study the piece Photo: Sven Darmer
The Berlin soloist Ghalumyan is also enraptured by Pina Bausch’s work: “It is a great experience that we have here with ‘Frühlingsopfer’. And how we need to feel the others in the group. We don’t follow the music like we usually do, we are the music.” A hard piece of work, of course, he says.
But he adds: “There is so much adrenaline that I was exhausted after rehearsals. But it’s wonderful, the pain is part of it!”
The premiere and all subsequent performances in June 2023 are sold out. More information