SYM-PHONIE MMXX

for dance, light and orchestra

Choreography by Sasha Waltz
Music by Georg Friedrich Haas (commissioned work)
Sasha Waltz & Guests

World premiere 13 March 2022, Staatsoper Unter den Linden, Berlin

A group of dancers runs around on a gravel-covered stage.

Sasha Waltz’s new work for dance, light and orchestra “SYM-PHONIE MMXX” was commissioned by the renowned composer Georg Friedrich Haas and is his first official stage work for dance after numerous operas.

Written for a large symphonic ensemble of the Staatskapelle Berlin, the composition creates space for a harmony, a “symphony” of dance and music: the musical language and the body language of the dancers enter into a close relationship.

The concept of “SYM-PHONIE MMXX” is based on an inspiring encounter of the arts, which – in the best tradition of dance history – is elevated to a principle: Music, dance and visual arts have been fused by Sasha Waltz and her artistic team into an evening that at the same time reflects contrasts and contradictions of our current life reality like a seismograph. The result is a work of noisy silence that repeatedly discharges its energy intoxicatingly in a veritable "dance on the volcano".

“In SYM-PHONIE MMXX I want to put the extreme experience of our reality into a form and create a contemporary genre painting.”
Sasha Waltz

Georg Friedrich Haas is one of the most successful composers of contemporary music, not least because he has dedicated his work to the utopia, “unachievable in one hundred percent perfection”, of creating new music that is at once expressive and melodious – not despite, but because it is new.

The company Sasha Waltz & Guests was founded by Sasha Waltz and Jochen Sandig in Berlin in 1993. To date, more than 300 artists and ensembles – architects, visual artists, choreographers, filmmakers, designers, musicians, singers and dancers – from 25 countries have collaborated as “Guests” on over 80 productions, ‘Dialoge’ projects and films. Sasha Waltz & Guests works in an international and constantly evolving network of production and guest performance partners, showing parts of its current repertoire of 20 pieces in about 70 performances around the globe each year. In Berlin, the company cooperates with a wide range of institutions such as municipal theatres, opera houses and museums and has contributed to the establishing of innovative production sites for artistic dialogue such as Sophiensaele (1997) and Radialsystem V, Space for Arts & Ideas (2006). The development of innovative forms of performance and creation in choreographic musical theatre has become the most significant focus of the work of Sasha Waltz & Guests.

For its anniversary year 2013 the company has been named ‘European Cultural Ambassador’ by the European Union. In 2014 Sasha Waltz & Guests was awarded the ‘george tabori ehrenpreis’ by Fonds Darstellende Künste.

Cast

Sasha Waltz – Choreography, Concept and Director
Pia Maier Schriever – Stage Design
Bernd Skodzig – Costume Design
David Finn – Lighting Design

Sasha Waltz & Guests – Dance

A production by Sasha Waltz & Guests, created as a co-production with the Staatsballett Berlin 2022.
Sasha Waltz & Guests is funded by the Senate Department for Culture and Community.
www.sashawaltz.de

Festivals

24th international literature festival berlin

Theaterpreis der Bundes 2024

SYM-PHONIE MMXX

for dance, light and orchestra

Cast