Description
This double bill is sure to make your heart beat faster! Luck / Unluck brings together two of the three artists in residence of Gauthier Dance, but above all, it’s a programme that promises to leave a lasting gut punch. The choreographic duo is based on a striking contrast and playful tension. The contrast which Eric Gauthier put at the heart of the new programme has struck a chord with both artists. For Aszure Barton as well as for Hofesh Shechter, these categories are directly related to the creative process itself. Or to put it another way: a new creation is always a gamble.
Aszure Barton feels lucky to be alive. Not because life is fair – it isn’t. But because it happened at all. Wildly improbable that we’re here! We arrive in bodies we didn’t ask for, thrown into systems already running. And still – we make something.
Luck isn’t fair. It isn’t moral. Doesn’t reward virtue. But it gravitates toward movement. So: move. Time flies. Aszure lives the work – researches, prepares, obsesses. But theory alone won’t cut it. She believes in movement. That rigorous preparation allows her to surrender. In the studio, she multitasks the space to taunt the planning mind. She responds to the humans in front of her.
The unexpected becomes the material. The mistake is the magic. Unluck into luck. Here, the dancers are co-conspirators. Collective forward momentum – each body expands the field, multiplying the risk, more places for luck to land. The collective knows things a single mind cannot touch. Aszure Barton comments: „It’s my job to get people moving – to trust their instincts, to create. The dancers. You. We are here – improbably present, alive. I celebrate that we show up together. Yes we’re human. We are selfish, absurd, we wait, we want, we hope, mouths open, hungry. Less loneliness – maybe that’s why we’re here! We expand the surface together. Luck falls where it will, like bird droppings. Brutal, rough, beautiful, random.“
Creating is provocation, she says. So when Eric Gauthier challenges her with Luck —it’s time to play. Time to place her bet ...
Hofesh Shechter also takes a gamble. What's more, with Unluck he goes all-in and challenges fate. An experiment that is equal parts self-irony and anxious anticipation. For the UK-based choreographer is determined to turn the rehearsal process for his new piece into a dare – he claims, half tongue-in-cheek, half serious. Shechter: „As a creative person, I want to believe that the impact, quality and genuineness of my work doesn't depend on a superstitious mindset, or luck.“ Too bad that Shechter has apparently paved his everyday life with all kinds of little superstitious rituals. These include mundane things like making the bed in the morning and not changing his trousers while the creative process is underway. But there are also more fundamental psychological aspects. Never speak positively about the choreography in advance. Don't allow the press to attend rehearsals.
But that's over now! Shechter sets out to bring about his own misfortune on a grand scale. He deliberately breaks all the ironclad rules he has set for himself. That this goes against all his instincts? Never mind! Because the gain in insight is far more important than the success or failure of a single premiere: finally finding out what happens when we throw our ingrained habits overboard. The former H. Shechter would have feared: „This way, I’ll be in for an artistic disaster.“ The new Hofesh S. says: „My new piece will be a triumph.“ So that would be... Unluck.
A production by Theaterhaus Stuttgart
in co-production with Orsolina28 Art Foundation
