Johan Inger - Alexander Ekman - Sol Leon & Paul Lightfoot

Bittersweet Comedies

Walking Mad, Cacti, Sad Case

Modern ballet 14
From
To
Eiffel Art Studios – Miklós Bánffy Stage
Running time including intermission
  • Act I:
  • Interval:
  • Act II:
Johan Inger / Maurice Ravel – Arvo Pärt

Walking Mad

A wall, 3 female and 6 male
dancers, and Ravel's Bolero. This is the base of Swedish choreographer Johan Inger's one-act ballet, which he originally created for the Netherlands Dans Theatre in 2001.
The minimalist space takes newer and newer shapes for the ever intensifying music, and newer and newer characters appear in it, in more and more mad situations and states. 
"The famous Bolero from Ravel with its sexual, almost kitschy history was the trigger point to make my own version. I quickly decided that it was going to be about relationships in different forms and circumstances. I came up with the idea of a wall that could transform the space during this minimalistic music and create small pockets of space and situations. Walking Mad is a journey in which we encounter our fears, our longings and the lightness of being.
»Our biggest blessings come to us by way of madness« - said Socrates."Johan Inger
Alexander Ekman / Franz Joseph Haydn – Ludwig van Beethoven – Franz Schubert

Cacti

Choreographer Alexander Ekman addresses on the contemporary dance stage a theme with which he defines himself as well: modern dance itself. The work passionately, and often raucously, picks apart the mannerisms of dance. Sixteen dancers stand visibly frozen on gigantic Scrabble tiles. While the string quartet plays and ironic-sounding words are heard spoken, the dancers run around, fall down, writhe on the floor and attempt to escape from their invisible prison. Eventually, each of them acquires a cactus. A play of rhythms between dancers and musicians.
Sol León & Paul Lightfoot / P. Prado – A. Dominguez – E. Lecuona – R. Barretto – Trio Los Pancho

Sad Case

“Now in hindsight we realise that energy is everything. When we created Sad Case in 1998, so far in to Sol’s pregnancy, the hormones were jumping and emotions were high.  It is these hormones of laughter, madness and the trepidation of the unknown ahead that are the umbilical chord of this work,” says the British Paul Lightfoot, thinking back to the origin of the ballet. He and his partner, the Spanish Sol León share credit for the performance’s choreography and set and costume designs. Up until 2020, León worked as artistic consultant and Lightfoot as artistic director for the Nederlands Dans Theater (NDT), where they were responsible for bringing about sixty creations, including Sad Case, which is undoubtedly one of the pillars of their work. In it, surprising movements set to Mexican mambo music reflect the ongoing search for the tension between the satirical and the serious. The Opera has long planned the staging of this irresistible modern piece for Hungarian audiences – and by way of it, the art of the world-famous Lightfoot.

Media

Ballet guide

Walking Mad

This dance performance with a captivating mood, minimalist spectacle and powerful contemporary movement vocabulary was originally made for the dancers of the Nederlands Dans Theater (NDT) in 2001 and has won many major awards. Maurice Ravel’s well-known Bolero inspired the choreographer, but he regarded this very familiar, frequently adapted piece as only a starting point. “Walking Mad is a journey in which we encounter our fears, our longings and the lightness of being”, Inger explains. However, the journey, to which the opening image of a man arriving in a hat and coat unmistakably refers, also explores the absurdities of daily life, naturally in the context of the timeless subject of the relationships between men and women. As the thoughts of the piece do not follow a single strand throughout, the choreographer likewise finds unexpected ways to use the music.

It may seem crazy that the well-respected piece of music is abruptly interrupted, falls silent, and then a short while later starts again. As such, it is precisely the sweep of the music that the choreographer cuts. Then, finally, the last chord of the dance work is not Ravel’s usual climax, but a work in stark contrast, Arvo Pärt’s poetic piano piece Für Alina (1976), which sets the background of the parting duet about separation and letting go. The main creative prop on stage is a moveable plank wall rolling on wheels, which expands the movement options: it can be climbed on, hung from, slammed into; doors open and shut in it, but it can also fall, only to lift the dancers’ bodies up when it rises again. It can be danced on and against... It is the symbol of the limits, opportunities, barriers and gateways of our lives...

Rita Major

Cacti

Cacti was created in 2010 for the young artists of the Netherlands Dance Theatre and was inspired by a decidedly unpleasant series of events. Its topic is the asymmetrical and strife-ridden relationship between artists and critics. Alexander Ekman thinks back to the period of his life when he wrote the work: “It was created during a period of my life where I was very upset every time someone would write about my work. I did not find it fair that one person was going to sit there and sort of decide for everyone what the work was about. I believe that there is no right way and that everyone can interpret and experience art the way they want. Perhaps it’s just a feeling that you can’t explain or perhaps it’s very obvious what the message is.”

Can we, as viewers, accept that there is not always a need for analysis, that enjoying art can simply be an intuitive, emotional process and nothing more? Or do we always need someone to explain to us what it is we are seeing? Cacti shows us a criticism of our world, built upon our self-importance, in a language that is exact and unforgiving, yet still full of love. For Ekman, this piece proved to be his professional breakthrough: the work has been on the repertoires of more than 15 companies across the world. “Cacti is definitely one of those works for which I will always feel a certain love. It is extremely hard to create a piece which feels complete and finished from beginning to end. I think with Cacti we somehow managed to arrange the pieces of the puzzle in a way so that the curve feels complete.” It was nominated for the Dutch Zwaan dance award in 2010, the British National Dance Award in 2012, and the celebrated Olivier Award in 2013. The Hungarian National Ballet first performed the work in 2020.

Anna Braun

Sad Case

Sad Case is far from being a sad story: on the contrary, it is rather cheerful, sometimes grotesque, ironic, special, irregular, and elusive. However, the greyness and enervation of downheartedness is definitely missing from it. Every moment of it is connected to life, to a real, down-to-Earth passion that becomes embodied flesh and blood. The piece was created in 1998 when Sol León was seven months pregnant with her daughter and was living the freest part of her life. This elemental joy of creation and saying yes to life seeped into the piece, entirely defining its genesis. When the creative process seemingly takes control of our own consciousness, talent, and experience is a special event for even the most inspired artists. In the interpretation of León and Lightfoot, Sad Case is just such a piece: it arrived in practically a couple of moments, naturally and without questions. Since then, the ballet has been performed in an adapted version.

The uniqueness of the movements stems from a mixture of the accuracy of the physical body and its motions and the unstoppable instinct that erupts from its depths. The exciting motions consisting of strong gestures are set to Mexican mambo music, providing both a satirical and a classical dance experience. In one of the movements, the human body becomes quite animal-like, only to return to its perfect form and then again to an animal-like gesture. The series of abstract scenes are connected to become a story by the viewer’s experience: the creator provides full freedom and a beautifully developed, dynamically variable surface of reflection as a tool. The choreographers selected the five dancers to ensure there are marked, detectable differences between them. The five characters are three men and two women who use their bodies together very seldom, even in the pas de deux. They express themselves outwardly as if they had no shared history at all. And what the first moment after Sad Case is about is entirely unpredictable.

Anna Braun