Richard Siegal / Ballet of Difference am Schauspiel Köln

A billowing, rustling cloth, a sail, a wave that gives birth and swallows, protective and eerie at the same time, a gate to another world. The stage allows itself to be translated into numerous metaphors, which provides Richard Siegel's XERROX VOL. 2 with a hyper-poetic framework. The almost empathic effects of the flowing material's actions correlate with the dancers and their language of movement: beautiful and sublime. The port de bras and the positions of the arms and hands form the choreographic nucleus of the work. Ballet-like formations pervade, but appear here to be remixed, to adhere to other rules, taken apart and put back together again anew. The ballet is named after a studio album by the musician Alva Noto, which also determines the soundscape: not rhythmic, but rather contemplative, and yet still invigorated by a pulse in its layers of sound that will be contrasted at times with choreographic sequences and at times with razor-sharp, rapid sequences, in order to again allow the musical meditation that is installed as an inner calm in the bodies, as an active state of the bodies.

The German dance scene is impossible to imagine without the choreographer Richard Siegal. Originally from the U.S., this former Forsythe dancer is active in Munich and Cologne, and he continuously creates works that may work with the means of classical ballet, but at the same time they question the concept of ballet, deconstruct it, and develop it further, thus conveying them into the future. With his company Ballet of Difference at Schauspiel Köln he is approaching his goal, step by step.

Richard Siegal is a regular guest at DANCE and his works were performed at the last five editions of the festival; since 2017 with his Ballet of Difference at Schauspiel Köln. He recently enthused audiences with his works NEW OCEAN SEA CYCLE and TWO FOR THE SHOW, which was created especially for digital spaces as part of DANCE 2021.

DANCE 2023 will feature three additional choreographies by Richard Siegal, the evening performance of the work TRIPLE.

More about XERROX VOL. 2 in the magazine