Sasha Waltz's dance company celebrates 20 years
For the past 20 years, Sasha Waltz's dance company has been entertaining audiences across the world. It has performed in 127 cities in 51 countries on every continent. The troupe has been hit hard by financial cuts.
Two decades in motion
For the past 20 years, Sasha Waltz's dance company has been entertaining audiences across the world. The troupe has performed in 127 cities in 51 countries on every continent. Now, however, the vision of choreographer, dancer and opera director Sasha Waltz has been dampened. Due to lack of financial resources, the company will let go its staff dancers on January 1, 2014.
Coming up short
Sasha Waltz was counting on the state of Berlin to increase funding for her company, but then the money was withdrawn. Currently, the company has to bring in half of its 4 million euro ($5.5 million) budget itself. Sasha Waltz & Guests was founded in 1993 in Berlin. The ensemble doesn't have its own performance hall, but gives guest performances in Germany and abroad.
At home in Berlin
The ensemble develops and rehearses its choreographies in Berlin, regardless of where they later perform. Their repertoire includes nearly 20 works. Thirty-five people have been employed by the troupe. Now 12 dancers and choreographers have to be let go to cut costs. In the future, they will work on a freelance basis. "I'm burying a dream that I've worked on my whole life," said Waltz.
Russian-Belgian-French-German co-production
Waltz most recently garnered attention with "Sacre," her interpretation of Igor Stravinsky's scandalous "Le sacre du printemps," which premiered over 100 years ago. Waltz's version was first performed in May at the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, then traveled to Paris, Brussels and Berlin. In the German capital, Daniel Barenboim conducted.
A universal language
Sasha Waltz managed to develop a unique language of movement, which is experimental and accessible, strict and playful. Her language is so universal that the ensemble has been welcomed by audiences all over the world. Waltz's international breakthrough came in 1996 with "Allee der Kosmonauten," a kind of family portrait.
Intense, aggressive, funny
With her first full-length work, "Twenty to eight," the opening of the "Travelogue" trilogy, Sasha Waltz revealed her unusual feeling for letting her dancers explore and then dominate a room. The work was a constant interplay of humor, aggression and sensuality. Today, it is considered a classic and is still part of the ensemble's repertoire.
A new genre
Since 2005, Sasha Waltz has dedicated herself to choreographing operas and combining music, dance and vocal performance as equal forms of art. Thus, she created a new genre, the "choreographic opera." Her first coup was with "Dido & Aeneas" by Henry Purcell. The production premiered in Luxembourg and has since been performed in 15 countries. One highlight: an aquarium on stage!
Around the world
Waltz's opera productions catapulted her into the public eye. She won many accolades in Germany and abroad, and in 2013 Sasha Waltz & Guests were named European "cultural ambassadors." The dancers in the company came from all over the globe - from Argentina to Japan, and Madagascar to Lithuania.
Cultural inauguration
A recurring element in Sasha Waltz's oeuvre is the "Dialogue" project, which is usually performed in empty public buildings. One of them was the Neues Museum on Berlin's Museum Island, which had been renovated by star architect David Chipperfield and reopend in 2009. Before the exhibits from the Egyptian Museum moved in, 70 dancers, musicians and singers inaugurated the place.
The architecture of motion
The company practiced this form of cultural inauguration in many other locations as well, including Zaha Hadid's MAXXI, a museum for modern art that opened in Rome in 2010. Waltz developed the idea of a moving exhibit, spread out over the building's floors. The result was a symbiosis between dance and architecture.
From Kolkata to Berlin
Among other places, the "Dialogue" projects have taken the ensemble to an abandoned palace in Kolkata's historic downtown, a medieval abbey in Montpellier and Berlin's gutted Palace of the Republic. The former seat of communist East Germany's parliament was later completely torn down. Each one of these performances was interdisciplinary - a dialogue between dance, architecture, art, and music.
Capturing motion
Sasha Waltz's oeuvre is currently the subject of a special exhibition in her hometown of Karlsruhe in southern Germany to mark the company's 20th anniversary. It's an unusual homage: In the Center for Art and Media (ZKM), the fleeting art of dance is transformed into installations and films. Waltz's sketch books are also on display for the first time.
Open questions, open doors
What lies ahead for the internationally successful, but underfinanced company? At the moment, Sasha Waltz is still in Berlin. But she made it clear that she's had a turbulent year and will leave all of her options open. "If I find what I need to work artistically somewhere else, then I will consider that," she said.
Uncertain future
It would be a loss for Berlin if Sasha Waltz and her company were to leave the German capital. However, it's telling that it has been eight years since Sasha Waltz & Guests premiered a work in Berlin.