Author Archives: Esther

STEIN

Lucinda Childs & Dance On Ensemble

Choreography & Performance: Lucinda Childs
Performance: Miki Orihara
Set, Video & Music: Hans Peter Kuhn

Lights: Martin Beeretz, Hans Peter Kuhn
Costumes: werkstattkollektiv
Technical Direction: Martin Beeretz
Sound: Mattef Kuhlmey

Production: DANCE ON / Bureau Ritter. In cooperation with Radialsystem, Berlin.
Coproduction: CCNR Rillieux-la-pape – Yuval Pick; Le Phare – Centre chorégraphique national du Havre Normandie / direction Fouad Boussouf, as part of the Accueil-Studio Programme; Fonds Transfabrik – German-French fund for the performing arts.

Supported by Hauptstadtkulturfonds.
With the kind support of Ballet de l’Opéra de Lyon.
With the support of Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels.

Premiere: 24 July 2025, Radialsystem Berlin

STEIN is the second production in the Dance On series Encounters, where choreographers perform on stage, engaging in a physical encounter with a dancer of the Ensemble who takes on the role of co-author. This time, the choreographer Lucinda Childs and our dancer Miki Orihara will perform together, reflecting on a text by Gertrude Stein.

Lucinda Childs’ works explore the mutability of space and the manipulation of time through pattern recognition, rhythmic accuracy, and surprising changes in physical material. After leaving the Judson Dance Theater, she embraced a new approach, moving away from its principles of spoken word, found objects and pedestrian actions to incorporate text, music, gesture, and dance. In STEIN, Childs reflects on her earlier works through the lens of decades of experience.

Alongside her performs Miki Orihara, who is best known for her work as a principal dancer in the Martha Graham Dance Company, for which she earned a Bessie Award in 2010. Her dynamic career, spanning performance works with Robert Wilson, award-winning Broadway productions and ongoing work with numerous choreographers, has shaped her into a performer of remarkable power and sensitivity.

Hans Peter Kuhn and Lucinda Childs share a long history of collaboration in productions by Robert Wilson and are reuniting for STEIN after quite some time. For this world premiere, Kuhn has created a stage set featuring video projections of water, evoking the fluid, transformative, and yet constant nature of water, accompanied by an intense sound composition of noises and a piano improvisation. The choice of text by Gertrude Stein was driven by the artists’ shared fascination with the author and her distinctive language.

The Encounters series challenges traditional roles of choreographer and dancer by positioning the dancer as a co-author, exploring shared creative processes and the relationship between choreography and interpretation.

 

At the beginning of the evening, the Dance On Ensemble will present three works of Lucinda Childs from the 1970’s: Untitled Trio, Radial Courses, Interior Drama. These dances showcase a formative and important period of her creative development. A period in which her choreographic signature became radically evident.

Choreography: Lucinda Childs
Staging: Ty Boomershine
Performance: Ty Boomershine, Javier Arozena, Alba Barral Fernández, Emma Lewis, Gesine Moog, Lia Witjes Poole
Light: Martin Beeretz
Sound: Mattef Kuhlmey
Costumes: Alexandra Sebbag

A production by DANCE ON / Bureau Ritter in co-production with STUK. House for
Dance, Image and Sound / Münchner Kammerspiele.

Funded by the Doppelpass Fund of the Kulturstiftung des Bundes (German Federal Cultural Foundation). The restaging is funded by the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion. Part of DanceMap, funded by Horizon Europe, the European Union’s funding programme for research and innovation.

 

FRANK

Cherish Menzo / Dance On Ensemble / GRIP & Theater Utrecht

Concept and Direction: Cherish Menzo
Creation and Performance: Omagbitse Omagbemi (Dance On Ensemble), Malick Cissé, Mulunesh
Sound Design: Maria Muehombo a.k.a. M I M I
Video Design: Andrea Casetti
Sound and Video Engineering: Arthur De Vuyst
Set Design: Morgana Machado Marques
Lighting Design: Ryoya Fudetani
Dramaturgy: Johanne Affricot, Renée Copraij
Costumes: Cherish Menzo
Text: Khadija El Kharraz Alami, Cherish Menzo
Artistic Advice: Khadija El Kharraz Alami, Nicole Geertruida
​​​​​​​Surtitles: Jennifer Piasecki
Technician on Tour: Pieter-Jan Buelens, Arthur De Vuyst, Ryoya Fudetani, Hadrien Jeangette
Graphic Design: Nick Mattan

Thanks to: Mildred Caprino, Anne Goedhart, Rodney Frederik & Winti Formation “Krin Ati,” Daryll Geldrop, Ernie Wolf, Sandra Menzo, Shavelie Menzo, Madeleine Planeix-Crocker, Sarah Garnaud, Alice Bröker, Johanna Cool

Choreographer Cherish Menzo examines the figure of the monster in FRANK —short for Frankenstein. More than (re)producing a physical or visual portrayal of the monster, she is researching the monstrous as an embodiment of beliefs and narratives that terrify and horrify, and yet also attract us. Distortion is a choreographic leitmotif used to generate movement material and as a tool to devour the dance and loosen its structure. Cherish Menzo investigates the action of decay and how something gradually breaking down and becoming less or worse can affect one’s gestures.

The performance space fabulates on the Baka Gorong, a place located at the back of the former plantations and in front of the wetlands, where enslaved people in Suriname secretly went to carry out Winti rituals – demonized under Dutch colonial rule – and to consider fleeing.

She is joined by Omagbitse Omagbemi (Dance On Ensemble), Mulunesh, and Malick Cissé  – performing artists from different generations – to construct a performance between the ritual, the apocalypse, and the carnival, where narrated identities are challenged, where flesh can deviate and be corrupted until it bursts and becomes unbearable. The dancers express their standing in the world with incoherent, broken-down movement in a scenery that collapses around them. In an increasingly unstable world of hiccups and unlikely events, often gruesome and violent, we are reminded of early horror movies and this eerie feeling, the flicker in the dark.

Premiere: 22 May 2025, Kunstenfestivaldesarts Brussels

Production: GRIP & Theater Utrecht (Dagmar Bokma, Anne Breure,  Maartje de Groot, Teun de Loos, Philip den Uyl, Hanne Doms,  Seline Gosling, Anneleen Hermans, Tom Hemmer, Leonie Jekel, Myrthe Ligtenberg, Thomas Lloyd, Rudi Meulemans, Lize Meynaerts, Klaartje Oerlemans, Jennifer Piasecki, Florien Smits, Sylvie Svanberg, Bregt van Deursen, Ad van Mierlo, Yoni Vermeire, Nele Verreyken Vincent Wijlhuizen)

In collaboration with: Dance On Ensemble / Bureau Ritter

International Distribution: A propic – Line Rousseau, Marion Gauvent

Co-Production: Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Carreau du Temple – Etablissement culturel et sportif de la Ville de Paris, Productiehuis Theater Rotterdam, Julidans Amsterdam, PACT Zollverein funded by the Ministry for Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, Festival Montpellier Danse 2025, le Centre Chorégraphique National d’Orléans – Direction Maud Le Pladec, Tanzquartier Wien, DDD – Festival Dias da Dança, festival d’Automne à Paris, One Dance Festival, Perpodium

With the support of: Centre nationale de la danse à Pantin, BRONKS, KWP Kunstenwerkplaats, l’Atelier de Paris – Centre de développement chorégraphique national
With the financial support of: the Flemish Government, Tax Shelter of the Belgian Federal Government via Cronos Invest, BNG Bank Theaterprijs, Charlotte Köhler Prijs van het Cultuurfonds, Culture Moves Europe, a project funded by the European Union and the Goethe-Institut

This work was produced with the financial assistance of the European Union. The views expressed herein can in no way be taken to reflect the official opinion of the European Union.

MUSIQUE – In the Spirit of Johann Strauss – The Missing Step

Dance theatre by Mathilde Monnier & Dance On Ensemble

Choreography: Mathilde Monnier & Dance On Ensemble
Music: Johann Strauss & Judit Varga
Lighting Design: Eric Wurtz
Costume Design: Laurence Alquier
Dance On Ensemble: Javier Arozena, Ty Boomershine, Emma Lewis, Gesine Moog, Jone San Martin, Marco Volta

Co-production and cooperation partners: A work commissioned by Johann Strauss 2025 Vienna in co-operation with ImPulsTanz

In a very personal exploration, the renowned French choreographer Mathilde Monnier and the Dance On Ensemble delve into the era of Johann Strauss. Melodic refrains and glimpses of elegant attire amidst the darkness, silhouettes come to life, occasionally solitary or in harmony, creating a ghostly and ephemeral universe. From it, we are reached by lost and rediscovered dances, seduced into waltzing – set to compositions by Judit Varga, breathing new life into Johann Strauss’ music and its timeless melodies.

Premiere: 10 May 2025, Volkstheater Wien

Company MM is supported by DRAC Occitanie.