Alejandro Cerrudo: Lickety-Split

Choreography: Alejandro Cerrudo Choreographer’s assistant: Pablo Piantino Music: Devendra Banhart Costumes: Alejandro Cerrudo, Rebecca Shouse Lighting design: Ryan O’Gara World premiere: Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Harris Theater for Music and Dance, Chicago-IL, 27.09.2006

Despite its title, Lickety-Split comes across as a rather relaxed work and, above all, a very human and playful one. To the hypnotic notes of Californian indie singer-songwriter Devendra Banhart, Alejandro Cerrudo, at the time resident choreographer of the Hubbard Street Dance Company in Chicago, stages the encounter of three couples: highly sensual, refined and with a slightly eccentric streak.

And it is precisely the tangible relationship between the three couples that keeps this work in the memory long after the performance ends. British dance critic David Mead described it this way in his review: a connection there, visible to all.

Marco Goecke: FURIA (for Gudrun)

Choreography: Marco Goecke Music: Jakob David Rattinger, Lina Tur Bonet & Musica Narrans – Folia Variations (After M. Marais & A. Corelli) Lighting design: Marco Goecke & Ludovico Pace Costumes: Michaela Springer Rehearsal direction: Ludovico Pace World premiere: Theaterhaus Stuttgart, 23.01.2026

Marco Goecke dedicated his world premiere to costume designer and Theaterhaus Stuttgart co-founder Gudrun Schretzmeier, who passed away in September 2025.

Created over an exhausting rehearsal period of just six days, FURIA represents an attempt to capture time. As his musical model, the choreographer, a long-standing resident artist of Gauthier Dance, chose the Baroque variations of the Folia by Marin Marais and Arcangelo Corelli: two compositions belonging to an era artistically obsessed with the fleeting nature of time.

“You have to fight for the time that passes,” the choreographer told the dancers during rehearsals, “fight to hold on to time, even when you realise it is slipping away.”

Ohad Naharin: B/olero

Choreography: Ohad Naharin Music: Isao Tomita’s arrangement of Maurice Ravel’s Boléro Lighting design: Avi Yona (Bambi) Bueno Costumes: Eri Nakamura Restaging: Rachael Osborne and Ian Robinson

It is hard to think of a piece of music that has been translated into dance as often, and in ways as varied and creative, as Maurice Ravel’s Boléro. Ohad Naharin too let himself be inspired by this iconic piece, but in his own way…

Not only does the title B/olero contain a slash, but the “Godfather of Gaga” also chose a synthesiser arrangement by Japanese composer Isao Tomita.

Aszure Barton: Lascilo Perdere / Duet

Choreography: Aszure Barton Music: Antonio Vivaldi – Cum dederit (Andante) from Nisi Dominus (Psalm 126), R.608 Costumes: Deanna Berg MacLean Restaging: Tobin Del Cuore

Lascilo Perdere / Duet is part of an evening-length work originally created by Aszure Barton & Artists and first presented at Joyce SoHo in 2005.

With her pas de deux drawn from Lascilo Perdere (A Journey of Letting Go), originally created for her company AB&A in 2005, Aszure Barton may have set a record for the longest and boldest kiss ever seen in a dance work.

For the entire duration of Antonio Vivaldi’s hypnotic Nisi Dominus – Cum Dederit, the new resident artist draws a couple into an almost impossible physical trial. Vivaldi had certainly never been translated into dance in this way before!

Mauro de Candia: La morte del Cigno

Choreography, lighting and costumes: Mauro de Candia Music: Camille Saint-Saëns – Le Cygne from Le Carnaval des animaux World premiere: GBM Giovane Balletto Mediterraneo, Teatro Guglielmi, Massa (Italy), 5 January 2009

Originally created in 1905 for prima ballerina Anna Pavlova, Michel Fokine’s solo set to the dreamlike music of Camille Saint-Saëns’s The Carnival of the Animals has become an emblem of classical ballet.

With La morte del Cigno, Italian choreographer Mauro de Candia offers a radically new vision of this iconic work. In his interpretation, the dying swan is embodied not by a delicate ballerina in a tutu, but by a male dancer. Without white feathers, almost naked, proud and defiant even in death.

Virginie Brunelle: High Moon

Choreography and costumes: Virginie Brunelle Choreographer’s assistant: Sophie Breton Composition: Laurier Rajotte Lighting design: Mario Daszenies World premiere: Theaterhaus Stuttgart, 23.01.2025

Virginie Brunelle is regarded as one of the great promises of Canadian dance, and Eric Gauthier too draws regularly on the talent of his compatriot. High Moon is her third creation for the company and has become one of the JUNIORS’ greatest successes: a young, dynamic and uncompromising choreography with a club-like atmosphere, accompanied by Laurier Rajotte’s original music, inspired by Maurice Ravel’s Boléro.

The dance critic of the Stuttgarter Zeitung wrote: “Living tableaux dissolve into the fog; the wild, darting movements to the techno beats set the oversized jackets dancing, and the dream team literally bounces and sways as if in a trance. The audience was spellbound. A standing ovation!”