"Orpheus and Eurydice"

She is an enchanting nymph, he a gifted poet – and the first one at that. Canadian choreographer Marie Chouinard makes “Orpheus and Euridice” dance: their intense love, their disastrous wedding day and their tragic separation in the underworld. With wild movements, opulent images and intense eroticism. “This was an explicit production with a substantial amount of on-stage copulation”, as the British press indignantly remarked of the latest piece by the famous artist.

Yet actually Chouinard addresses questions concerning the birth and power of language, the connections between the body as text and the word becoming flesh. All this with a dedicated belief in the power of dancing and the expressiveness of the whole body in grotesque poses, dramatic scenes and beguiling duets. Precision and radicalness characterise this danced hymn to Orpheus, in honour of whom a temple was built on the island of Lesbos, so that – in line with Chouinard’s view – his spirit may live on forever.