STAATSTHEATER MAINZ / SHARON EYAL
(DE)
2020_STAATSTHEATER MAINZ
tanzmainz
tanzmainz is the contemporary dance company of Staatstheater Mainz. Since 2014 Dance Director Honne Dohrmann has been leading the ensemble of 22 dancers and a rehearsal and production team. Israeli choreographer Guy Weizman, based in the Netherlands, has been the house choreographer until June 2019, creating a new work for the ensemble every season together with his partner Roni Haver. Both keep the connection as guest choreographers in the future.
tanzmainz productions are created by guest choreographers such as Sharon Eyal & Gai Behar, Guy Nader & Maria Campos, Koen Augustijnen & Rosalba Torres Guerrero, Garry Stewart, Danièle Desnoyers, José Navas, Roy Assaf and Victor Quijada among others. They choreograph new works for and in collaboration with the dance ensemble.
tanzmainz’s goal is to achieve artistic synergy with maximum possible openness, used for the development of newchoreographic concepts. The creation of networks, collaborations and co-productions play an important role in the company’s artistic development. By displaying quality, originality and veracity, our mission is to be an integrative dynamic in the city and region, as well as an outstanding ambassador for the city of Mainz and the Rhineland-Palatinate through guest performances and tours.
tanzmainz is a company with a high level of social responsibility that reflects and recognizes multi-layered social challenges in its productions. Ensemble members are highly educated artistic personalities, who continually search for artistic challenges and are actively involved in supporting choreographers to develop their works.
SHARON EYAL
Sharon Eyal was born in Jerusalem. She danced with the Batsheva DanceCompany between 1990- 2008 and started choreographing within the framework of the company’s Batsheva Dancers Create project. Eyal served asassociate Artistic Director for Batsheva between 2003-2004, and as a House Choreographer for the company between 2005-2012. During 2009 Eyal began creating pieces for other dance companies around the world: Killer Pig (2009) and Corps de Walk (2011) for Carte Blanche Dance of Norway; Too Beaucoup (2011) for Hubbard Street Dance Chicago; Plafona (2012) for Tanzcompagnie Oldenburg, Germany.
In 2013 Eyal launched L-E-V with her long-time collaborator Gai Behar. L-E-V’s repertoire consists of 5 creations at the present and will be premiering their new creation titled – Love Chapter 2, this coming July, at the Montpellier Dance Festival. For the second time L-E-V’s creation is co-produced with two of the leading dance venues around the globe: Sadler’s Wells- London and Julidans- Amsterdamand this year, for Love Chapter 2, also joined for the co-production: Montpellier Danse Festival, GROS Culture Percentage - Dance Festival STEPS, the RomaEuropa Festival and Theater Freiburg.
In the past 5 years since L-E-V was founded, the company had more than 150 performances some in the most exclusive venues around the world such as: The Joyce Theatre – NYC; Jacob’s Pillow - Becket, Massachusetts; Sadler’s Wells – London, UK ; The Montpellier Danse Festival – France; Julidans – Amsterdam. Alongside their work with L-E-V, Eyal and Behar had also been commissioned to create for external companies: the Nederland Dance Theatre Sara (2013); Bedroom Folk (2015); Salt Womb (2016), Half-Life for the Royal Swedish Ballet and more.
Eyal received several awards:
The Ministry of Culture Award for Young Dance Creators (2004), Eyal was named – Chosen Artist, by the Israeli Cultural Excellence Foundation (2008), The Landau Prize for the Performing Arts in the dance category (2009), The 12th Belgrade Dance Festival’s Jovan Ćirilov Award (2017), The prestigious Fedora Prize (2017), The French Professional Association of Dance & Theater Critiques at the Chaillot National Theater in Paris, The Deutsche Theaterpreis DER FAUST(2018) with Soul Chain, Staatstheater Mainz.
Soul Chain
Choreography: Sharon Eyal
Co-creator: Gai Behar Composition: Ori Lichtik Costume: Rebecca Hytting
Stage and Lightdesign: Alon Cohen
Assistant to Choreographer: Rebecca Hytting, Tom Weinberger Rehearsal Director:Andrea Svobodova
Performed by: Madeline Harms, Daria Hlinkina, Bojana Mitrović, Nora Monsecour, Amber Pasters, Maasa Sakano, Marija Slavec, Milena Wiese; Justin Brown, Zachary Chant, Finn Lakeberg, Cornelius Mickel, Sándor Petrovics, Matti Tauru, Louis Thuriot, John Wannehag
Director tanzmainz: Honne Dohrmann
Production Manager: Lisa Besser/Julia Danila Assistant of Dance Directorate: Bianca Wolf
Coordination of Touring: Maria Eckert Set up
Stage&Sound on Tour: Luka Curk
Set up Light on Tour: Ulrich Schneider
Stage Manager on Tour:Matthew Tusa
Inspired by strong emotions all around love Soul Chain connects ballet and electro to a thrilling contemporary dance. The Ensemble becomes a swarm full of energy in an extremely challenging Choreography that won the German Theatre Prize DER FAUST in 2018.
Even though Sharon says Soul Chain is a play about love and longing, you should not expect too much romance. Rather, the movements are animalistic and pure, a steaming group that moves with the highest discipline in rhythmic unison. The longer a unisono lasts, the more time we have to search for the differences as public and can find the dancers in full intention. As the choreographer says, one can see from the same thing how different we are. So here, in the contrast between the group and the individual, she expresses her love for the absolute uniqueness of each individual.
The re-staging of Soul Chain in 2019 was like a reunion. The enormously knowledgeable tanzmainz rehearsal director Andrea Svobodova had four weeks to rehearse the work in all its technical and emotional aspects; at times supported by Sharon’s longtime dancers and assistants Rebecca Hytting and Tom Weinberger.
“We find a big loneliness in us confronted with the love of life, this huge passion, which is not always present in our feelings.
We have to accept this loneliness of us all. Everyone is living their own life and is ending it alone.
There are big emotions within the bodies. I believe, it doesn´t need a story, much more its priority shows the actual expression through the bodies and muscles.
Soul Chain represents a creation about desire. You see the pain, the sweat, how the inner being is trying to find its way to the outside. This power is growing more and more while the bodies are slowly getting tired.
For me it´s all about the humans, who are standing here. How they look at you, how you look to them, how they look at each other. Sometimes it´s impossible to see the emotion through your eyes, but you know they are there you feel them under your skin.
Basically it`s all about love, about the love to the others, to yourself, to the space which surrounds you, love to everything. Love is like tissue.
I don´t plan any scene, much more I feel what is right in this moment very intuitive, almost like an animal.”
Sharon Eyal