Stars Like Moths / 2 Chapters Love by Staatsballett Berlin
Seeing two ballets by the same choreographer in different opera houses within a week is something that can only happen in Berlin. Culture here truly is the gift that keeps on giving!
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🎭 Stars Like Moths / 2 Chapters Love
🩰 Staatsballett Berlin
🕺 Sol Léon / Sharon Eyal
🏛️ Staatsoper Unter den Linden Berlin
🗓️ 06.06.2024
I‘ve been having a hard time wrapping up my thoughts for this post because the only thing that‘s been on my mind for days is the new WICKED movie (holding space etc). I will say this: they could not have made a better cinematic adaptation out of the iconic Broadway musical. The movie is emotional, whimsical, funny, THEATRICAL, and highly political, topical, and relevant. If you in any way enjoy musicals or musical films: GO SEE IT!
Back to ballet: this program again consisted of two very different choreographies. STARS LIKE MOTHS by Sol Léon was almost like a performance art piece, something I wouldn’t be surprised to see in a pavilion at the Venice Art Biennale. What particularly stayed in my memory is the bookcase framing of the piece by a dancer who demonstratively eats a watermelon. While not everything has political intent, it does exist in a political context: in 2024 Berlin, the watermelon is a symbol equally unifying and divisive, bold but appreciated. In between the watermelon bookcase, a sort of story is told—one that I couldn’t quite follow—with an emphasis on solo dancing.
2 CHAPTERS LOVE by Sharon Eyal is a rework of an earlier piece specifically for this production at Staatsoper. In what seems a signature mark, 2 CHAPTERS LOVE blends contemporary dance with hypnotic electronic music. The dancers become one entangled organism moving along the stage rhythmically, sharply but fluidly. Occasionally, one of the dancers breaks out of the group in a grasp of individual agency before returning to the hive. In a nod to the piece‘s title, at least one of the dancers shoulders Cupid‘s arrows. Particularly in combination with the skin-tight costumes blending in with the rest of the dancers‘ bodies, this piece reminded me a lot of another choreography by Eyal, SAABA, which I had seen just the week before at Deutsche Oper.
Seeing two ballets by the same choreographer in different opera houses within a week is something that can only happen in Berlin. Culture here truly is the gift that keeps on giving!
