ROMEO + JULIET

Dancers: Alessio Attanasio, Özkan Ayik, Guido Badalamenti, Rita Barão Soares, David Cahier, Anna Calvo, Marta Jaén, Rodrigo Juez Moral, Amelie Lambrichts, Thomas Martino, James Nix, Isabella Pirondi, Ariane Roustan, Verónica Segovia, Luca Seixas, Javier Ubell, David Valencia, Lieke Vanbiervliet, Chiara Viscido Orchestra of the Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz

Love itself had helped to write »Romeo and Juliet« – this was Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s comment on William Shakespeare’s world-famous tragedy of love. But the choreographed premiere created by Icelandic choreographers Erna Ómarsdóttir and Halla Ólafsdóttir for the Gärtnerplatztheater has very little to do with amorous whisperings and tender declarations of love. Ómarsdóttir und Ólafsdóttir use the musical template of Sergei Prokoviev’s famous ballet music as the basis for a completely new type of dance creation which tells its audience in often radical images a story of the essence of the different genders – of their mutual attraction, but also of their constant conflict. The fact that this brings explicit representations of violence and sexual symbolism to the stage is absolutely typical of the intense imagery used by these choreographers. We can promise you an evening of dance at a level of intensity that will leave no-one unmoved.

»The choreographer duo does not keep up with the well-known story, but provides associations to individual stations, using quotations from fine arts and pop culture. The result is images that are as powerful as the dark basic temperament of the evening. «SUEDDEUTSCHE.DE