Bittersweet Comedies

Dance and self-reflection. The classical seen through the modern. Lightness and gravity. These might be the words to describe the three ballets presented in a single evening. Bittersweet Comedies brings together the dance works Walking Mad, Cacti, and 5 Tangos. “I came up with the idea of a wall that could transform the space during this minimalistic music and create small pockets of space and situations. Walking Mad is a journey in which we encounter our fears, our longings and the lightness of being,”  explains Dutch choreographer Johan Inger about his piece. At the center of Cacti stands the language of dance itself: a (self-)critical caricature – ironically enough! – expressed in the very language of dance. In 5 Tangos, opposites dissolve: contemporary and classical styles intertwine and merge.

Johan Inger / Maurice Ravel – Arvo Pärt
Walking Mad
A wall, 3 female and 6 male
dancers, and Ravel's Bolero. This is the base of Swedish choreographer Johan Inger's one-act ballet, which he originally created for the Netherlands Dans Theatre in 2001.
The minimalist space takes newer and newer shapes for the ever intensifying music, and newer and newer characters appear in it, in more and more mad situations and states.
"The famous Bolero from Ravel with its sexual, almost kitschy history was the trigger point to make my own version. I quickly decided that it was going to be about relationships in different forms and circumstances. I came up with the idea of a wall that could transform the space during this minimalistic music and create small pockets of space and situations. Walking Mad is a journey in which we encounter our fears, our longings and the lightness of being.
»Our biggest blessings come to us by way of madness« - said Socrates."Johan Inger

Alexander Ekman / Franz Joseph Haydn – Ludwig van Beethoven – Franz Schubert
Cacti
Choreographer Alexander Ekman addresses on the contemporary dance stage a theme with which he defines himself as well: modern dance itself. The work passionately, and often raucously, picks apart the mannerisms of dance. Sixteen dancers stand visibly frozen on gigantic Scrabble tiles. While the string quartet plays and ironic-sounding words are heard spoken, the dancers run around, fall down, writhe on the floor and attempt to escape from their invisible prison. Eventually, each of them acquires a cactus. A play of rhythms between dancers and musicians.

Hans van Manen / Astor Piazzolla
5 Tangos
5 Tangos is one of Hans van Manen’s best known and, deservedly, most popular works: superb music and dance combine to evoke a pulsing metropolis and a world of fiery and passionate instincts. Sometimes sultrily lethargic and other times set to accelerating tempos featuring virtuoso elements, this thrilling work plays with solo and group scenes to reveal the changing games of the individual and the community, the many faces and layers of love and attraction and a portrait of an era.