Why did we do all that: toughness, endurance, pain, the whole juvenile struggle and competition for skill and discipline with the goal of becoming classical dancers? Three decades later, four former ballet dancers and a performance colleague look back on the time of their common artistic imprint as guests of a gala of the “old hand” (“Alter Hase”) Lajos Talamonti, on the occasion of his 38th stage anniversary. In their bodies the memory of the structures is still awake, the demon in search of perfection, universal beauty, and of indescribable body-poetry is still alive, but life has written completely new pages: full of contradictions, new beginnings, changes of perspective. Art and life have indissolubly mixed and rubbed off on each other. In a last common dance they make, also through the distance in time, the rigid structures of the classic pliable and tell of life as an often surprising school, the method of which everyone has to invent anew for himself every day. The search for “expression”, once obsessively rehearsed according to precise rules, thus shifts to open terrain and also allows the question of “style” to appear in a new light.
Lajos Talamonti has been working in Berlin’s Freie Szene in changing formations with a variety of artists and groups since 1996. The Sophiensaele has been a central place of his work since 1999. First as a member of the group Nico and the Navigators, then through his own work and participation with numerous colleagues, and since 2013 as a member of the group Interrobang. In recent years, there have been occasional small excursions into the expressive form of “dance”, in which he was actually trained: In Corinne Maier’s The End of the World, especially Jerome Bel’s Gala. Alter Hase is Lajos Talamonti’s first and probably last dance production. He has invited dancers and movement artists to accompany him as guests of honor in this commemorative work. Having a personal history with all those invited, they are, therefore, more than just former (ballet) dancers.
DANCE, PERFORMANCE Christine Bombosch, Martin Clausen, Marc Geifes, Brit Rodemund, Lajos Talamonti CONCEPT, ARTISTIC DIRECTION Lajos Talamonti CHOREOGRAPHY Berit Jentzsch DRAMATURGY Werner Waas DESIGN Katharina Kromminga Outside Eye Corinne MaierPRODUCTION Olaf Nachtwey TECHNICAL DIRECTION Dirk Lutz With special thanks to Heinz Manniegel, Hannah Miller, Martin Puttke, Dagmar Springer, Johanna Wall
A production by Lajos Talamonti in coproduction with SOPHIENSÆLE. Funded by the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Europe. With the kind support of the Heinz Bosl Foundation. Media partner: Berlin Art Link, taz.die tageszeitung, tipBerlin