You can always rely on the Stuttgart dance audience! Gauthier Dance is still in the midst of creation – but the tickets for the first series of performances are already completely sold out. A vote of confidence that is not only proof of the company’s popularity. It can also simply be interpreted as a very sensible reaction to an exquisite line-up.

For the new concept evening ELEMENTS combines world premieres by master choreographers Mauro Bigonzetti (earth), Sharon Eyal (fire), Andonis Foniadakis (water) and Louise Lecavalier (air).
To stress the contrasting nature of the elements, Eric Gauthier has opted for four very different dance languages. At the same time, it was important to him to find a perfect artistic match for each of the elements: Mauro Bigonzetti with his passion for down-to-earth peasant culture; Sharon Eyal with her supple, aesthetic formations; the tempestuous, unruly Louise Lecavalier and finally the flexible but powerful dynamics of Andonis Foniadakis. Over the past few months, the company has intensively explored the different movement vocabularies of these four choreographers – and is now eager to present the results. The premiere is on leap day, February 29, 2024.

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Gauthier Dance//Dance Company Theaterhaus Stuttgart
Artistic Director: Eric Gauthier
Company Coach: Egon Madsen
Ballet masters: Cesar Locsin, Luis Eduardo Sayago
Company Manager: Inga Kunz
Artistic management: Daria Mosunova, Susanne Wildermuth
Technical production management: Holger Reuker
Artistic coordination set and costumes: Gudrun Schretzmeier
Dancers: Bruna Andrade, Andrew Cummings, Anneleen Dedroog, Karlijn Dedroog, Barbara Melo Freire, Luca Pannacci, Garazi Perez Oloriz, Arnau Redorta Ortiz, Shai Ottolenghi, Rina Pinsky, Izabela Szylinska, Sidney Elizabeth Turtschi, Locke Egidio Venturato, Giovanni Visone, Shawn Wu, Shori Yamamoto
Tour management: ecotopia dance productions, www.ecotopiadance.com

ELEMENTS
World premieres by Mauro Bigonzetti, Sharon Eyal, Andonis Foniadakis, Louise Lecavalier
Premiere on February 29, 2024
A production of Theaterhaus Stuttgart

The upcoming new production by Gauthier Dance promises nothing less than an elementary experience – for the company itself as well as for the audience. And because Eric Gauthier has always had a penchant for playing with numbers, this bill will also be marked by a number, four. Even the premiere will take place on a day that only occurs every four years: February 29, 2024. Above all, however, this programme brings together four artists who are as stylistically different as the four primary substances of all things:

No one has collaborated with Gauthier Dance as many times as the great dance aesthete from Italy. Mauro Bigonzetti’s pieces have been an integral part of the company’s repertoire since the first season in 2007/08. Just recently, Eric Gauthier „incorporated“ the body-twisting choreography Pression from High Five in the anniversary programme 15 YEARS ALIVE.
Those familiar with Bigonzetti’s work will not be surprised by the element Eric Gauthier has chosen for him: Earth. After all, the Roman-born artist finds the inspiration for it right on his doorstep – in the village in the Marche region where he settled down a long time ago. One of his recurrent themes is the power of nature, as can be seen in his signature piece Cantata, in which the native music of southern Italy and a close-knit village community merge into an exuberant celebration of life. Pietra Viva was the name of the vibrant pas de deux he created for Gauthier Dance in 2011, the living stone. The company can’t wait for Mauro Bigonzetti to turn earth into dance.

The first piece Sharon Eyal created specifically for Gauthier Dance was a quiet bang – her deceptively elegant yet devious pas de trois for The Seven Sins. What was still smouldering under the surface in Point will now catch fire. For what other element would be more appropriate to the star choreographer than … Fire? In ELEMENTS, after the deadly sin of envy, Sharon Eyal returns to the large cast she became famous for. Eyal’s immensely focused, meticulous work process regularly produces group pieces that have an almost hypnotic effect, transforming the dancers into a single, breathing organism. As precise, rhythmic and relentless as clockwork. As powerful and unstoppable as a sea of flames.

Is it because he grew up on the island of Crete and has been familiar with Water since childhood? In any case, one thing is clear: Andonis Foniadakis can do flowing. Anyone who has seen the stunning dance symphony Streams, which he created for the tenth anniversary of Gauthier Dance in 2017, will agree. No one before him has shown the dancers as smoothly, organically, pliably. Few before him have challenged them so much at the same time. The rapid shifts and complicated lifts make Foniadakis‘ choreographies notoriously difficult to dance. Impressive virtuosity and plenty of atmosphere were also demonstrated in his second work for Gauthier Dance AELLΩ. The solo for a mysterious avian creature shrouded in mist was Foniadakis‘ contribution to The Dying Swans Project. Expectations for the third collaboration couldn’t be higher.

Louise Lecavalier is the icon of contemporary dance from Canada. Eric Gauthier has admired the legendary front woman of Édouard Lock’s company La La La Human Steps since he was in ballet school in Toronto. The punk, physical strength and incredible speed she brought to dance had never been seen till then, least of all from a woman. She has retained her unruliness and wildness to this day. No wonder, then, that she will take on the element of Air. Or should we better say storm in her case? Either way, her piece for Gauthier Dance will shake things up quite a bit. The world premiere by Louise Lecavalier will be a premiere in two respects: Instead of choreographing herself, she will, for the first time, create a piece for another company. Incidentally, she is also changing the element. That’s because her new solo will partially take up So Blue, her choreographic debut of 2012, whose title evoked – water.

Theaterhaus, T1
Premiere on Thursday, February 29, 2024 / Friday, March 1, 2024 / Saturday, March 2, 2024  – at 8:00 p.m. / Sunday, March 3, 2024 at 7:00 p.m. / Wednesday, March 6, 2024 / Thursday, March 7, 2024 / Friday, March 8, 2024 / Saturday, March 9, 2024  – at 8:00 p.m. / Sunday, March 10, 2024 at 7:00 p.m.
Wednesday, May 15, 2024 / Thursday, May 16, 2024 / Friday, May 17, 2024 / Saturday, May 18, 2024 – at 8:00 p.m.

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Photos Jeanette Bak