The Seven Sins – Gauthier Dance shines a spotlight on vice

The first rehearsals started last autumn and since the beginning of the year the Dance Company Theaterhaus Stuttgart has almost exclusively focused on one of its most ambitious productions to date: The Seven Sins, with world premieres by Aszure Barton, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Sharon Eyal, Marcos Morau, Sasha Waltz and the company's two artists in residence, Marco Goecke and Hofesh Shechter.

The company is aptly calling the seven-part programme a Gesamtkunstwerk even before the premiere on 26 March 2022 and (aside from performances of Swan Lakes at the Holland Dance Festival in February 2022) all its energy is being invested in the creation.

Each of the choreographers will transform a mortal sin into a work for Gauthier Dance. SWR / ARTE & EuroArts are also on board as TV production partners so The Seven Sins will be broadcast on ARTE.

The Seven Sins – The Choreographers

Aszure Barton (Sloth)

She can do classical, but she loves the freedom of movement: The pieces of the Canadian choreographer tend to oscillate between dream and reality, and she often plays with the surreal. Aszure Barton uses connotations and fleeting images to charge the language of her dancers with meaning, turning it towards mysterious darkness or bright irony. In 2005 she became the first artist-in-residence at the Baryshnikov Arts Center in New York, she worked for many dance companies in her home country as well as for The American Ballet Theatre, the Martha Graham Dance Company, NDT or Bavarian State Ballet. In 2002 she set up her own company, Aszure Barton and Artists.

Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui (Greed)

He dances with monks, with stones, with mirrors or acrobats. In his extremely soft, flowing style, he communicates with hip-hop, tango, Indian or Spanish dance. Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui contrasts myths, nations, epochs and musical styles, he glides from genre to genre with ease, looking to capture the essentials everywhere. The Belgian with Moroccan roots heads his company Eastman and the Royal Ballet of Flanders. Today, as the widely acknowledged magician of the dazzling Gesamtkunstwerk his clients range from Beyoncé to ballet, opera and Broadway. In mid-2022 he will take over as artistic director of the Grand Théâtre de Genève.

Sharon Eyal (Envy)

The choreographer from Israel demonstrates the hypnotic power of the synchronous, the incredible dynamics of an organism made of human-machine bodies. Minimal changes or serial variations disrupt the order of her groups, individuals break free from the repetitive patterns of an apparently post-human society. In 2013, Sharon Eyal and Gai Behar founded their own company L-E-V in Tel Aviv. The artist couple has a close relationship with Theaterhaus. Their cult piece Killer Pig is part of the Gauthier Dance repertoire. L-E-V was also a co-production partner of the 2015 COLOURS Festival and will guest at COLOURS 2022 next summer.

Marco Goecke (Gluttony)

They flutter, twitch and tremble: Marco Goecke has invented a whole new universe of movements for the arms and upper body of his dancers, countless allusions permeate his noir pieces. Minimalistic in décor and costumes, between nervous dynamism and sudden lyricism, his highly musical choreography explores the hidden inner world. The long-term resident choreographer of the Stuttgart Ballet is now the artistic director of the State Ballet Hanover. He has been an associate artist with Nederlands Dans Theater since 2013 and artist in residence with Gauthier Dance since 2019.

Marcos Morau (Pride)

Marcos Morau composes pictures. His Catalan artist collective La Veronal turns dance into a theatrical performance, relying equally on texts, scenery, media and light. They create beguiling tableaux, a synaesthetic, multimedia dance theatre that the Spanish choreographer has developed into his very own narrative language. In addition to La Veronal, he also works for other companies such as the Spanish Compañía Nacional de Danza, the GöteborgOperans Danskompani or the Royal Danish Ballet.

Hofesh Shechter (Lust)

His pieces literally explode on stage: with Hofesh Shechter, a harsh wind from the street blows through the theatre, existential anger burns in his savage, restless groups. The Israeli choreographer living in London depicts aggression, chaos and the longing for freedom, often set to hard rock rhythms composed by himself. Having established his fame with pieces such as Uprising, also in the Gauthier Dance repertoire, he founded the Hofesh Shechter Company in 2008 and also continues to work for major dance companies worldwide – since summer 2021 also as artist in residence of Gauthier Dance.

Sasha Waltz (Wrath)

Coming from the independent scene, this icon of contemporary German dance theatre has stirred up the metropolis of Berlin and its theatres in a bold, rough and often bizarre way. Even as an established and revered figurehead, she has never given up her radical individuality: To this day, her pieces are expressive and intensely physical, even now that Waltz stages choreographic operas all over the world and moves her dancers through the vast spaces of famous museums. Since 1993 she has been artistic director of Sasha Waltz & Guests, for an interim period also of the Berlin State Ballet.

The dancers taking part in The Seven Sins are Bruna Andrade, Joaquin Angelucci, Louiza Avraam, Nora Brown, Andrew Cummings, Anneleen Dedroog, Barbara Melo Freire, Luca Pannacci, Garazi Perez Oloriz, Jonathan Reimann, Mark Sampson, Gaetano Signorelli, Izabela Szylinska, Sidney Elizabeth Turtschi, Shawn Wu, and Shori Yamamoto.

Gramilano( Editor )

Graham Spicer is a writer, director and photographer in Milan, blogging (under the name ‘Gramilano') about dance, opera, music and photography for people “who are a bit like me and like some of the things I like”. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy.

His scribblings have appeared in various publications from Woman's Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the ‘Danza in Italia' column for Dancing Times magazine.