SPITZE
Abstract
SPITZE – an examination of classical ballet, its hierarchies, body images, illusionary worlds and the people involved it.
The source of origin is the romantic ballet, the emergence of toe dance in the 19th century and its idealisation of the ballerina. The interest in the subject developed from Doris Uhlich´s last piece of work und, in which the gestures, the robustness and fragility of the performing older people´s bodies were the centre point. Contrary to und, SPITZE lays emphasis not on everyday gestures or moving patterns but on the codes of classical stage dance, which have been fixed for centuries.
Susanne Kirnbauer - retired first solo dancer of the Vienna Opera meets Harald Baluch – solo dancer and Doris Uhlich who started to toe dance when she was thirty years old.
The performers leave their habitual means of representation and stage presence behind and find new access to their own dancing biographies.
“She was skinny, appeared to be a shadow of herself; she was like a little cloud dwelling at the shores of a blue lake, a flake of fog stirred by the wind at the waterfall! Her hair was entangled by a tender-pink breeze, a pair of peacock feather wings trembled on her fragile shoulders. Her dress seemed to be made of dragonflies´ canvas, her shoes were like the calyx of a lilly. She appeared and vanished like a character in a dream. Just when you thought she was here, she was already somewhere else.” (a ballet-enthusiast about Marie Taglioni – the first toe dance master – in „La Sylphide“, 1832.)
“In classical ballet there are various constructions to produce illusion. But what happens if ballet gestures are reduced to the movement of a hand?” (Andrea Salzmann)
Involved Peopel
Choreography: Doris Uhlich
Dramaturgy: Andrea Salzmann
With: Harald Baluch, Susanne Kirnbauer, Doris Uhlich
Sound Advice: Stefan Geissler
Production: Nicole Schuchardt, Marlies Pillhofer
Doris Uhlich
www.dorisuhlich.at
A co-production of Doris Uhlich and brut / Wien. Supported by the cultural department of the city of Vienna and bm:ukk.