Four New Works

Performing Arts Season 2024/2025

– Porträt von Lucinda Childs

World Premiere 7 August 2024, International Summer Festival Kampnagel, Hamburg

Lucinda Childs, one of the icons of post-modern dance, presents “Four New Works” with her Lucinda Childs Dance Company for the first time in Berlin, collaborating with visual artist Anri Sala, pianist Anton Batagov, and composers Philip Glass and Hildur Guðnadóttir. Along with new short pieces for the dancers of her company, a solo performed by the choreographer herself will be featured.

“Four New Works”, which will celebrate its premiere at Kampnagel in Hamburg in August 2024 and is co-produced by Berliner Festspiele, presents the first new works Lucinda Childs has developed in almost a decade with her company. The showcase not only allows an in-depth insight into the aesthetic cosmos and current creative work of the New York choreographer and dancer, but also highlights the progression of her work as one of the pioneers of post-modern dance for more than five decades. Her style is distinguished by minimalist and pure movement patterns, performed with pace and precision in countless repetitions and variations, unfolding a hypnotic pull.

“Actus”, a duet and the first of the works, is set to the cantata “Actus Tragicus” by Johann Sebastian Bach. Presumably composed for a funeral, Bach’s early cantata opens a moving dialogue about eternal life and earthly suffering, providing a comforting, but also sharp sound. “Actus” is followed by a new adaptation of an original solo from 1965 titled “Geranium '64”, which is performed by Lucinda Childs herself. The solo continues Childs’ prolific collaborative record with video work by the renowned visual artist Anri Sala. The third piece on the programme, “Distant Figure”, is a new choreographic work for six dancers with music by Philip Glass. “Distant Figure” will be accompanied live by Russian star-pianist Anton Batagov, who will play the 2017 composition that Glass wrote for his long-standing artistic partner Lucinda Childs. The evening closes with “Timeline”, a new creation for seven dancers to unreleased music by the Icelandic composer, cellist and Academy Award Winner Hildur Guðnadóttir.

Lucinda Childs was born in New York City in 1940. In 1963, she began her career as a dancer, choreographer and co-founder of the Judson Dance Theater in New York. Ten years later, in 1973, she founded her own company, for which she has created more than 50 works so far. She forged long-standing partnerships with artists like Philip Glass, Robert Wilson, Sol LeWitt, John Adams and Frank Gehry. She was introduced to the Berlin audience through Nele Hertling’s work at the Academy of the Arts. Since 1980, Lucinda Childs has been directing and choreographing works at major opera houses and for ballet companies such as the Ballet de l’Opéra de Paris, the Bavarian State Ballet, the Martha Graham Dance Company, the Los Angeles Opera or the Opéra national du Rhin. She has received numerous awards and distinctions: She was declared a Commandeur dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and received the Gold Lion at the 2017 Dance Biennale in Venice as well as the 2022 Dance Magazine Award. 

Programme

Actus (2024)

Duet, set to the cantata “Actus Tragicus” (BWV 106) by Johann Sebastian Bach.

With Sharon Milanese, Caitlin Scranton

Geranium ’64 (2024)

Solo by and with Lucinda Childs

(off-stage counterweight: Kyle Gerry), based on Childs’ solo “Geranium” (1965), with the multimedia work by Anri Sala “For Geranium, 2024” (with excerpts from a radio broadcast of the 1964 NFL Championship game between the Cleveland Browns and the Baltimore Colts)

     Interlude

     “Lyrical Music” from “Unfamiliar Weapon OST” by Anton Batagov

Timeline (2024)

Choreography for ensemble with original music by Hildur Guðnadóttir

Distant Figure (2024)

Choreography for ensemble to the composition “Distant Figure (Passacaglia for Solo Piano)” by Philip Glass, with Anton Batagov on piano

With Robert Mark Burke, Katie Dorn, Kyle Gerry, Sharon Milanese, Matt Pardo, Caitlin Scranton

Artistic Team

Lucinda Childs – Choreography

Lucinda Childs Dance Company: Lucinda Childs, Katie Dorn, Kyle Gerry, Robert Mark Burke, Sharon Milanese, Isaiah Newby, Matt Pardo, Caitlin Scranton – Dance

Johann Sebastian Bach, Philip Glass, Hildur Guðnadóttir – Music

Anri Sala – Video, Stage, Sound “Geranium ’64” (Programming: Dominik Hildebrand Marques Lopes, Studio Anri Sala)

Anton Batagov – Piano

Nile Baker – Costumes

Sérgio Pessanha – Light Design

Tricia Toliver, Ammara Shafqat – Production Management

Kampnagel International Summer Festival, The Blanket – Production

Berliner Festspiele, Chaillot–Théâtre national de la Danse Paris, La Bâtie-Festival de Genève – Co-Production

 

With the support of Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels, James Madison University School of Theatre and Dance, UCLA Center for the Art of Performance.

Next date:

• Date Saturday, 07/December/2024 19:30 (1 more date)
• Venue Haus der Berliner Festspiele - Große Bühne
• Address Schaperstraße 24, 10719 Berlin-Wilmersdorf