Hooray, we are alive! And there is hope: Hasn’t the situation improved a lot in the 15 years since the world premiere of this magnificent and intensely debated performance by French choreographer Maguy Marin? “We play with what is possible without achieving it”, Marin qualifies, putting our present situation in a nutshell: we do what we can, but there’s a lot more to be done. And so the challenge presented by her piece Umwelt is perhaps even more relevant today than it was when it first premiered in 2004. A sharp wind whistles on the stage, blurring all the beautiful dancing. It tugs at the performers’ clothes and hair as they persistently cling to their ‘normal’ life in a demonic whirl of noise in front of and behind mirrors. But the effects of the years of plenty are mercilessly throwing their world out of joint. With Umwelt, Marin has brought an iconic piece of enlightenment into the world, making the audience feel in an unpathetic but all the more insistent manner of just how – increasingly – pressing time still is.
Premiere of the Restaging
Duration: 70 Minutes
