b.10 – “Tanzsuite mit Deutschlandlied”

“You have to throw yourself into something again and again to experience something new. You have to keep moving, go headfirst or force yourself to dive in wherever: cold water is best. It’s the seemingly impossible that makes me go further than I can ever imagine. I need the danger. It’s the challenge of a piece of music that compels me to my ballets.” So Martin Schläpfer once described his starting point for a new piece. Time and again the choreographer finds compositions that seem at first glance impossible for transforming into dance. One of these pieces is Helmut Lachenmann’s “Tanzsuite mit Deutschlandlied”.

Since the 1970s, the composer has systematically developed a “musique concrète instrumentale” which creates a completely new sound, through new playing techniques for classical instruments. In his “Tanzsuite mit Deutschlandlied” composed in 1979/80 there are several old dance forms, which with their rhythm and cadence create a baseline of familiarity, whilst at the same moment they seem to emerge from and disappear into Lachenmann’s idiosyncratic and never before heard sounds.

Text: Ballett am Rhein Düsseldorf/Duisburg