Dance On Ensemble & Solistenensemble Kaleidoskop
In collaboration with Rabih Mroué

Choreography, Music, Performance: Javier Arozena, Alba Barral Fernandez, Ziv Frenkel, Anna Herrmann, Emma Lewis, Miki Orihara, Jone San Martin, Marco Volta, Anna Faber, Mia Bodet, Mari Sawada, Ildiko Ludwig, Yodfat Miron, Isabelle Klemt, Sophie Notte, Michael Rauter

Concept, Book: Rabih Mroué
Dramaturgy: Maxi Menja Lehmann
Composition Choir: Grégoire Simon
Costume Design: Werkstattkollektiv
Vocal Coach: Doreen Kutzke
Technical Production Management & Light: Martin Beeretz

Production: DANCE ON / Bureau Ritter and Solistenensemble Kaleidoskop
In cooperation with Berlinische Galerie – Landesmuseum für Moderne Kunst, Fotografie und Architektur
In collaboration with Radialsystem
Funded by Hauptstadtkulturfonds

Premiere: 29 November 2024, Berlinische Galerie
Dates: 30 November, 1 & 3 December 2024

 A Sky Like A Wall is the first major collaboration between the musicians of the Solistenensemble Kaleidoskop, the dancers of the Dance On Ensemble and the author and performance artist Rabih Mroué. An encounter in the rooms of the Berlinische Galerie.

Both ensembles develop a collective authorship and team up with Mroué who wrote a notebook entitled ‘The Notebook of an Unspecified Colour’ for the production. Various scores are collected in it: Drawings, collages, illustrations, settings, instructions, which form the starting point of the creative process. The leitmotif of the notebook is the story of the Tower of Babel, which fails due to a lack of understanding. The idea of polyphony and multilingualism is inherent in the way both ensembles work. They ask themselves: How can we use different languages and still communicate? How can a project like this speak about the lack of dialogue in our day?

In the rooms of Berlinische Galerie the sixteen performers create miniatures in duos, trios and quartets. They are precisely arranged with each other; in one place in the room, a movement becomes visible, while in another place the sound that matches this movement is heard. Gradually, a sculpture of sound, dance and voices emerges, inviting the audience to constantly refocus their gaze and ear on what is happening and sounding. Many scenes take place simultaneously side by side. The audience travels with the artists through the space and decide for themselves which frame they choose, what they focus on.

Meg Stuart/Damaged Goods & Dance On Ensemble

Choreography: Meg Stuart
With: Omagbitse Omagbemi, Meg Stuart, Mieko Suzuki

Live music: Mieko Suzuki
Scenography: Nadia Lauro
Light design: Nico de Rooij
Costume design: Claudia Hill
Dramaturgy: Igor Dobričić
Artistic assistants: Luna Luz Sanchez, Valentin Braun
Technical coordinator: Tom De Langhe

Production: Damaged Goods and DANCE ON / Bureau Ritter
Coproduction: Théâtre Garonne – scène européenne Toulouse, Centre Chorégraphique National d’Orléans – Direction Maud Le Pladec, HAU Hebbel am Ufer Berlin, Tanzquartier Wien, PACT Zollverein Essen, Kunstencentrum VIERNULVIER Ghent, Perpodium

Choreographer Meg Stuart and Dance On Ensemble dancer Omagbitse Omagbemi create a trio
with composer and musician Mieko Suzuki in the framework of the Dance On series
‘Encounters’, where choreographers become visible on stage in a meeting with a member of
the ensemble. This new work touches on fundamental questions: how do we share a creative
process? What is the balance between a choreographic desire and freedom of interpretation?
How can we transgress and reinvent our roles?

Meg Stuart has always considered her own body as a site, a testing ground. By dancing in her
own pieces, she intuitively deconstructs the choreographic principles that she tries to
articulate. Omagbitse brings another perspective to this search. Beneath the raw physicality
that characterizes Stuart’s style, she recognizes first and foremost a quiet care and attention to
detail. Playing with these seemingly opposing traits, the three collaborators look for a common
ground and a shared language. Cumulating, morphing, becoming, they move towards a group
portrait that remains just out of reach.

Premiere: 16, 17, 18 October 2024, Théâtre Garonne, Toulouse (FR)
On tour: from December 2024

With the support of Goethe-Institut and the tax shelter measure of the Belgian Federal Government via Cronos Invest.

The residency in Orléans is supported by Culture Moves Europe, a project funded by the European Union and Goethe-Institut.

Damaged Goods is supported by the Flemish Government and Flemish Community Commission. Meg Stuart/Damaged Goods is artist-in-residence at Kunstencentrum
VIERNULVIER (Ghent).

Choreography: Christos Papadopoulos
Artistic Director Dance On Ensemble: Ty Boomershine
Dancers: Ty Boomershine, Javier Arozena, Alba Barral Fernández, Anna Herrmann, Emma Lewis, Gesine Moog, Miki Orihara, Tim Persent, Jone San Martin, Marco Volta, Lia Witjes Poole
Choreographic Assistant: Georgios Kotsifakis
Music: Coti K
Lights: Eliza Alexandropoulou
Costume: Werkstattkollektiv
Technical Director: Martin Beeretz

A body that is outwardly still and inwardly vibrating – what processes does the energy undergo before it breaks through? How does it change when the body matures?

In his new production „MELLOWING“ Greek choreographer Christos Papadopoulos embarks on his inaugural collaboration with the dancers of the Dance On Ensemble. Incorporating their knowledge and experience into the creation, together they explore moments of perception and intensities of the moment that create a lively restlessness, a permanent vibration in which the spectator is inevitably involved.

Christos Papadopoulos’ works are fed by an intensely observant approach to movement and often unfold a lively and meditative power. His attention is focused on the minimal shifts of perception, the perpetual, often unnoticed and yet powerful movements that are ever-present in nature, in everyday life, within physical phenomena and political contexts. His debut “Elvedon” (2016) was inspired by Virginia Woolf’s novel “The Waves” and captures the continuous undulation of the sea. This was followed by “Opus” and his third choreography “ION”, an artistic exploration of the phenomenon of ionization and its underlying forces of attraction and repulsion. In his latest work, “Larsen C”, he turns his attention to the micro-phenomena of movement, this time inspired by the popularised iceberg of the same name, which lost a large part of its surface in 2017.

Production: DANCE ON / Bureau Ritter
Coproduction: ONASSIS STEGI, Athens and Centre chorégraphique national de Rillieux-la-Pape / Direction Yuval PICK, as part of the accueil-studio programme.
Supported by the Hauptstadtkulturfonds.

Jan Martens & Dance On Ensemble

Choreography: Jan Martens

Cast: Ty Boomershine, Truus Bronkhorst, Jim Buskens, Baptiste Cazaux, Zoë Chungong, Piet Defrancq, Naomi Gibson, Kimmy Ligtvoet, Cherish Menzo, Steven Michel, Gesine Moog, Dan Mussett, Wolf Overmeire, Tim Persent, Courtney May Robertson, Laura Vanborm, Loeka Willems
Understudies: Pierre Bastin, Georgia Boddez, Wannes Labath, Zora Westbroek

Artistic Assistance: Anne-Lise Brevers
Lighting Design: Jan Fedinger
Costume Design: Cédric Charlier
Assistance Costume Design: Alexandra Sebbag and Thibault Kuhn

Production: GRIP
In collaboration with the Dance On Ensemble

International Distribution: A Propic / Line Rousseau and Marion Gauvent
Co-Production: deSingel international arts campus (Antwerp, BE), Theater Freiburg (DE), Sadler’s Wells (London, UK), Julidans (Amsterdam, NL), Festival d’Avignon (FR), Le Gymnase CDCN Roubaix Hauts-de-France (FR), Norrlandsoperan (Umeå, SE), La Bâtie – Festival de Genève & l’ADC – Association pour la Danse Contemporaine Genève (CH), tanzhaus nrw (Düsseldorf, DE), Le Parvis Scène Nationale Tarbes-Pyrénéés (Tarbes, FR), La Danse en grande forme (CNDC – Angers, Malandain Ballet Biarritz, La Manufacture – CDCN Nouvelle-Aquitaine Bordeaux – La Rochelle, CCN de Caen en Normandie, L’échangeur – CDCN Hauts-de-France, CCN de Nantes, CCN d’Orléans, Atelier de Paris / CDCN, Collectif Fair-e / CCN de Rennes et de Bretagne, Le Gymnase | CDCN Roubaix | Hauts-de-France, POLE-SUD CDCN / Strasbourg and La Place de La Danse – CDCN Toulouse Occitanie) and Perpodium
With support of: De Grote Post (Ostend, BE), Charleroi Danse (BE), CCNO – Centre Chorégraphique National d’Orléans icw Théâtre d’Orléans (FR) and December Dance (Concertgebouw and CC Brugge)
With financial support of: the Flemish Government, the city of Antwerp, Tax Shelter of the Belgian Federal Government and Cronos Invest, The Creative Europe Programme of the European Union as part of Dance On Pass On Dream On

Premiere: 18 July 2021, Festival d`Avignon

‘Snowflakes, leaves, humans, plants, raindrops, stars and molecules all come in communities. The singular cannot really exist.’ – Paula Gunn Allen in Grandmothers of the Light: A Medicine Woman’s Sourcebook

With any attempt will end in crushed bodies and shattered bones, Jan Martens is for the first time fully turning his attention to the main stage. A production about the power that lies in being out of step, performed by a seventeen-strong, atypical corps de ballet made up of unique personalities.

The heterogeneous group of dancers spans several generations, the youngest being 16 and the eldest 69, with significant differences between them in terms of track record and technical background. In any attempt will end in crushed bodies and shattered bones, they seek their own voice within the dance and beyond, looking for an idiom that fits them like a glove. One by one they claim their place on stage, without cutting off the others for all that. A horizontal exercise in giving each other the necessary space, while being careful not to steal the limelight.

any attempt will end in crushed bodies and shattered bones is a rich performance that does not hesitate to seek out the ecstatic. In times of extreme polarization, this group sets social dogmas aside to recognize and embrace a range of distinct identities. Being uninhibitedly themselves – in both life and art – with the stage as their ideological testing ground. They are supported by a soundtrack that consists of atypical protest songs from different ages – from Henryk Gorecki via Max Roach & Abbey Lincoln to Kae Tempest.

In “Making Dances”, the Dance On Ensemble invites contemporary artists – Tim Etchells, and Mathilde Monnier– to respond in their own artistic languages to iconic works of modern and postmodern dance by Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham.  In these performance works the artists reflect on classical but radical works that challenged the rules of their time.

Starting with Martha Graham’s “Deep Song” (1937) performed by long term Graham soloist and Dance On Ensemble member Miki Orihara. Danced within a neon text installation created by artist and performance maker Tim Etchells in response to Graham’s seminal work.  Merce Cunningham’s radically experimental “Story” (1963) re-imagined by the Dance On Ensemble.  Followed by the choreography of Mathilde Monnier, “never ending (Story)” who reacts to Cunningham’s “Story”, using the poetry by David Antin, a contemporary of Cunningham/Cage, as a starting point.

In presenting these works a connection is opened between dance heritage and contemporary dance creation as well as between artists of different generations and backgrounds.

In “Dancing Replies”, the Dance On Ensemble invites contemporary artists –  Ginevra Panzetti and Enrico Ticconi – to respond in their own artistic language to iconic works of postmodern dance by Lucinda Childs. In these performance works, the artists reflect on classical but radical works that challenged the rules of their time.

Starting with three early pivotal works by Lucinda Childs from the 1970’s the choreography duo Panzetti / Ticconi led by the minimalist movement language of Childs, present their response “MARMO” to these extreme examples of formalism.

In presenting these works a connection is opened between dance heritage and contemporary dance creation as well as between artists of different generations and backgrounds

Choreography: Mathilde Monnier

With: Ty Boomershine, Emma Lewis, Jone San Martin, Gesine Moog, Marco Volta

Light Design: Martin Beeretz
Sound Design: Mattef Kuhlmey
Artistic Collaboration: Stéphane Bouquet
Costume: Mathilde Monnier
Costume Assistance: Nora Stocker
Technical Direction: Martin Beeretz

“When I received this invitation to come talk about Merce Cunningham’s work, I felt it was time for me to come and do it.” (David Antin)

This is almost the way a poem by David Antin starts. This poem, improvised by Antin during a festival in honour of John Cage in May of 1989, is also how Never Ending Story starts… and, for that matter, started. Ty Boomershine and the Dance On Ensemble invited me to reply, in my own way, to Story, a work that Merce Cunningham premiered in 1963.

“So I felt it was time for me to come and do it.”

Someone comes onto the stage and tells you some stories. Stories about structure and rhythm. Stories about feelings and repetitions. The story of the feeling of the dance that’s about to appear.  The story of the gestures taking place whilst this stream of words produces it. By telling stories, dancers prepare themselves to listen to their own voices and to feel their own bodies move.  While talking, they experience the thought as it happens to a mind and, above all, to a body.   By “it happens”, one must mean everything but an abstract process: Thought is far from being a disembodied concept, indeed, thought is literally body-produced and it acts upon the body in return.

To talk and to dance, talking as you dance, dancing as you talk. To dance as an effort to get closer to what thought is, but also to the singular tone of your own voice formulating a thought.

Production: Dance On/DIEHL+RITTER
In cooperation with: Kammerspiele München
With the support of: Montpellier Danse à l’Agora, cité internationale de la danse/ Avec le soutien de Montpellier Danse à l’Agora, cité internationale de la danse

Choreography and Costume: Martha Graham

Restaging: Miki Orihara

With: Miki Orihara

Neon Installation: Tim Etchells

Music: Henry Cowell
Light design reconstruction: David Finley
Light: Martin Beeretz
Sound: Mattef Kuhlmey

“Deep Song” premiered at the Guild Theater in New York in 1937. Set to music by Henry Cowell, the dance was composed in response to the Spanish Civil War. Deep Song was a cry of anguish, an embodiment of Martha Graham’s fears for a world torn apart by man’s inhumanity to man. “The fierce, fighting anguish of Deep Song is as direct and as objective as a shout,” wrote one critic.
According to program notes, “the forms of the dance – its swirls, crawls on the floor, contractions and falls – are kinetic experiences of the human experiences in war. . . It is the anatomy of anguish from tragic events.” The tragedy of Spain is universalized through the choreography. “It is not Spain that we see in her clean impassioned movement; it is the realization that Spain’s tragedy is ours, is the whole world’s tragedy.” The dance disappeared from the repertory in the 1940s, and it was not until 1989 that it was reconstructed by Graham with Terese Capucilli.

Long-time Graham dancer and Dance On Ensemble member Miki Orihara will dance a restaging of “Deep Song” as part of the program “Making Dances”. 

“Everything/Nothing” is neon text installation created by artist and performance maker Tim Etchells, in response to Martha Graham’s seminal work Deep Song. Designed to be hung above the stage as the choreography is danced by Miki Orihara , the full text of Etchells’ work is a quotation from Federico García Lorca’s 1931 poem ‘Ay!’ reading simply: Everything in the world is broken. Nothing but silence remains.  

Arranged as a constellation of neon words in dispersed arrangement above the stage Etchells’ work enters a porous dialogue with Graham’s choreography, the words illuminated one at a time to make a brief time-based intervention in the work, in which Lorca’s text haunts the air above and around the piece. In the gesture of bringing this particular text into dialogue with Deep Song, Etchells closes a circle of connection between the legacy of flamenco’s deep song, Graham’s powerful choreographic response to the Spanish Civil War, and Lorca himself who lost his life during the conflict. Placing fragmentary language, as individual words, in dialogue with Graham’s ambiguous choreography of a suffering female figure, Etchells’ neon directly addresses the concerns and context of the dance as well as acknowledging the limits of language when it comes to speaking of traumatic experience.

This work can also be presented singularly in the appropriate conditions.

This production of Deep Song is presented by arrangement through Martha Graham Resources, a division of the Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance, Inc