The Rite of Spring

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Image courtesy of Aesthetica Magazine

More than a hundred years after the premiere of Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring in 1913 at the Théâtre des Champs Elysees in Paris by Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, it is now considered one of the masterpieces in the history of music. 

The Mariinsky Theatre of Saint Petersburg invited Sasha Waltz to perform this extraordinary score, so symbolic in the history of dance. An archaic composition, full of tension and characterized by an accentuated rhythm and multiplicity of textures and obstinate musical motifs. Its dissonances have made the work one of the most famous pieces of music of the modern avant-garde and most representative of the 20th century. 

The proposal for Sacre is fierce, vigorous, chaotic and utterly magnetic: an explosion of twenty-eight dancers of all ages generates enormous turbulence on stage. They celebrate the arrival of spring, when a young girl is chosen as a sacrificial victim and must dance to the death. Alarmism, anxiety, fear... a drama that keeps the audience attentive to the nakedness of the victim, who dances in agony until her strength gives out. A macabre dance that cannot heal the imperturbable vital cracks in the community’s decision. 

Sacre is presented at the Gran Teatre del Liceu as a session in three parts. After the anguish and anxiety recreated in Sacre, we encounter the serenity of Claude Debussy’s L’après-midi d’un faune and the calm, loving peace of Scène d’amour from Hector Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette. Three well contrasted creations that reveal multiple facets of human nature, through humanity’s rebelling lights and shadows. 

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