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Recording: 2011-01-21 , HAU Hebbel am Ufer (HAU1) (Video © Walter Bickmann)

Emanuel Gat Dance

SILENT BALLET & WINTER VARIATIONS

HAU Hebbel am Ufer (HAU1)

Production Details / Press Releases

emanuelgatdance.com

SILENT BALLET: Dance as a musical score. An orchestration of movements. Silent Ballet is using silence as well as its own live sounds as a dense, thick musical environment, open to endless opportunities for melodic, harmonic and dynamic interpretation. A self-contained dance, Silent Ballet is a work for 8 dancers, experimenting with different sets of choreographic tools and the transfor- mation they undergo during the process of creation. Starting as parts of a growing physical mechanism, those initial sets of tools holds the DNA of a slow unfolding logic with countless references. In many ways, Silent Ballet is dealing with dance making itself. It exposes the parts of this fine tuned process and allows a glimpse into the alchemy of physical abstraction. Questions about dance and beyond are being tackled within a bare land- scape, in a dance piece stripped to its basic elements.

WINTER VARIATIONS: Winter Voyage, the first piece to be presented after the establishment of Emanuel Gat dance, was created early 2004 and danced by Roy Assaf and Emanuel Gat to three “Liedern“ from Schubert masterful cycle. Since its creation, the two have danced this duet more then 250 times all over the world to great acclaim. In many ways, the 17 minutes of Winter Voyage, hold the core ideas regarding the choreographic process later developed by Emanuel Gat in pieces such as The Rite of Spring, K626, Through the Center and Silent Ballet.

Winter Variations, explores the options lying beyond the proposition made in Winter Voyage, and uses them as the starting point for a few distinctive variations. The work is based on a unique artistic collaboration, between two dancers and performers who share a common understanding regarding the action of dance, and a rare physical telepathy. After several group pieces, the desire to once again explore the duet form, derives from a need to re-determine the basic means of creation. The loss of countless compositional tools used when choreographing for a group, results in going back to basics. The focus on the dance material itself, along side the need for a definition of an extremely clear context, becomes crucial.

A mechanism of extreme zoom-in, is applied on certain key points in Winter Voyage in order to explore the landscapes lying behind specific choreographic fragments. Moments of charged stillness are examined carefully in search of the movement potential they inhabit. A few seconds of dance in Winter Voyage develop in Winter Variations into full chapters of complex choreography and elaborated sequences of human drama.

Emanuel Gat was born in Israel, 1969. After his military service, his first encounter with dance was at the age of 23 during a workshop led by Israeli choreographer Nir Ben Gal. Six months later, at age 23, Gat joined the Liat Dror Nir Ben Gal Company with whom he toured in Israel and around the world. Shortly after he began working as an independent choreographer, creating his first solo piece “Four Dances” in 1994 to music by Bach. Over the next 10 years Gat created a number of independent projects as dancer and choreographer. In January 2004 Gat established his company Emanuel Gat Dance, which received Israel’s Minister of Culture Award in 2005 for outstanding dance performances. In September 2007 Gat moved to France and based his company at the town of Istres where it is hosted since by Ouest Provence.

His work has been presented in Israel as well as internationally at dance festivals around the world. He is regularly invited to set his work and create new choreographies for dance compnies around the world including a.o. The Paris Opera Ballet, Sydney Dance Company, Le Ballet du Rhin, Tanztheater Bremen, Le Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève, Ballet de Marseille, Noord Nederlandse Dans, Polish National Ballet.

Cast & Credits

SILENT BALLET

Choreography: Emanuel Gat
With: Andrea Hackl, Rindra Rasoaveloson, Amala Dianor, Hervé Chaussard,
Pan Sun Kim, Michael Löhr, Philippe Mesia, François Przybylski
Technical Director: Samson Milcent

Coproduction: Montpellier Danse, Lincoln Center Festival New York,
Festival RomaEuropa, Sadler’s Wells London, Maison des Arts de Créteil,
Supported by: Régie Culturelle Scènes et Cinés Ouest Provence

WINTER VARIATIONS

Choreography: Emanuel Gat
From and with: Roy Assaf and Emanuel Gat
Technical Director: Samson Milcent

Coproduction: American Dance Festival, Montpellier Danse,
Lincoln Center Festival New York, deSingel Antwerp
Supported by: Régie Culturelle Scènes et Cinés Ouest Provence

HAU Hebbel am Ufer (HAU1)

Stresemannstr. 29
10963 Berlin

hebbel-am-ufer.de
Map

Tickets: +49 (0)30 259 004 27
tickets@hebbel-am-ufer.de

Video Documentation

The video documentation is produced on behalf of the Senate Department for Culture and Europe. The purpose of this contract is to document productions in the field of contemporary dance in Berlin. The master recordings are archived by the University Library of the Berlin University of Arts. Copies of the recordings on DVD are available for viewing exclusively in the reference collections of the following archives (at media desks in these institutions):

University Library of the Berlin University of Arts
Mediathek für Tanz und Theater des Internationalen Theaterinstituts / Mime Centrum Berlin
Inter-University Centre for Dance Berlin (HZT)

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