Jagden und Formen (Zustand 2008)

Wolfgang Rihm has named the current version of his composition “Jagden und Formen” “Zustand 2008”. This is a piece that, having appeared in a number of variants, spaces and constellations as “Werklandschaft” (Wolfgang Rihm) – Work Landscape, has wended a winding course. “Jagden und Formen (Zustand 2008)” is as well an apt title for the choreographic work that Sasha Waltz is developing together with her company Sasha Waltz & Guests and Ensemble Modern to accompany this piece.

<h2>Sasha Waltz & Guests and Ensemble Modern</h2>

Two distinguished companies, the Ensemble Modern and Sasha Waltz & Guests, joined forces to work on Wolfgang Rihm’s “Jagden und Formen (Zustand 2008)”. This project ultimately succeeded in creating a unique combination of new music and contemporary dance, and in sensuously expressing the composer's deep affinity for dance. Following an encounter with the choreographer, Wolfgang Rihm reworked the score of “Jagden und Formen”, which has constantly gone through new phases since the mid-90s, into the current “Zustand 2008”. This formed the basis of an intensive dialogue between the companies, which is to be continued in the future. Rihm’s complex, high-energy music, which appears to take on various physical forms and aggregate states and to describe basic physical conditions, finds its response in the choreography of the dancers and the musicians.

<h2>Contemporary Concert Forms and Choreographic Opera</h2>

“Jagden und Formen” forms part of a series of works by Sasha Waltz which are particularly concerned with contemporary and classical compositions. Hans Peter Kuhn composed the music for the pieces “Körper” and “nobody”, and the American composer Jonathan Bepler contributed the music for S, the second part of the “Trilogie des Körpers”. Wolfgang Rihm’s student Rebecca Saunders created the musical basis for the choreographic installation “insideout” in 2003. The Dialoge-Projekt was performed in the “Palast der Republik” prior to its demolition in 2004 to music by Hans Peter Kuhn and Iannis Xenakis. “Dialoge 06 – Radiale Systeme”, the artistic opening of Radialsystem V in 2006 with music by James Tenney, Iannis Xenakis and numerous interpretations of classical and early Baroque compositions, represented a new stage of Sasha Waltz's encounter with contemporary music. Wolfgang Rihm’s piece “Jagden und Formen (Zustand 2008)” marks a further stage in her work on contemporary concert forms.

In the realm of musical theatre, the choreographer aims to facilitate the equality of the dancers, musicians and singers in the performances, and to establish a collective presence that goes beyond the conventional hierarchies of the arts and artists. She explored a new artistic world, that of the choreographic opera, with “Dido & Aeneas” in 2004. She continued this expedition with “Medea” (Dusapin, 2007), “Romeo et Juliette” (Berlioz, 2007), “Passion” (Dusapin, 2010) and “Matsukaze” (2011), an opera by the Japanese composer Toshio Hosokawa. Sasha Waltz set out in an entirely new direction with regard to contemporary concert forms with the choreographic concert “gefaltet” in January 2012. In a collaboration with the composer Mark Andre, the choreography and the music were developed in parallel, together with the musicians and dancers in the studio.

Thematically, “Jagden und Formen (Zustand 2008)” was a key step towards Sasha Waltz’s reinterpretation of “Sacre” to the music of Igor Stravinsky, which premiered in St Petersburg in 2013. Following a successful premiere in Berlin in October of last year, “Sacre” will return to Berlin in November 2014 along with “Jagden und Formen”.