A storm of emotions

By Manuela
„aPart“: A contemporary dance with tables –  at the State Theater Brunsvick “I will never again be able to simply sit at a normal table!” the lady beside me exclaims. Slowly I wake from a state of trance. I’m so spellbound that clapping doesn’t even come to my mind until a while later… and breathing as well.
What happened? Was it really 90 minutes, as the program stated, or was it rather five minutes or five months since… What? And how did tables come into it?

Photos: Andreas Etter

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Sitting down with my friend, the conversations are already subdued. Behind an ethereal curtain on the stage, two dancers are entwined around each other. Their flowing clothes and movements, the misty curtain and the vague light make the scene seem unearthly, phantasmal. “An end is a new beginning” – is projected on the curtain in large letters made of light.
A melancholic accordion marks the beginning of the play, and the light goes out. Like magic, the dance casts a spell on me…
A pulsing pile of men and women, moving organically like a beating heart, and then exploding outward. The dancers fling themselves in the air, on the floor, over and onto each other; they conquer the stage with a violent energy, with kung-fu jumps and breakdance acrobatics. All of this happens in complete silence and with a ballet-like elegance. Cello sounds make a strange contrast that gives me the creeps. At first, the dancers’ garments were white like innocence, but now they are red…like what? Passion, danger, love, pain… contradicting associations come to my mind, while the dancers continue hurling themselves and each other through the air, as if their life was at stake. Then an impossibly long leap becomes a breathless eternity, a flight through heaven itself. How do the dancers endure these 90 minutes? The performers’ muscles testify to many hours of harsh training, and being an amateur dancer, I have a small inkling of how many bruises and sprained joints are behind all of this… Finally, there they come: The Tables. They form obstacles and hideouts, barriers and connections, tools for climbing and acrobatics… they are being carried, pushed, thrown and climbed on.
The actors slowly push them forward, the table surfaces pointing toward the audience, so that they become an impenetrable wall that closes with an ominous crash.
Then the tables are placed behind each other, so that they become a pathway on which two black angels glide forward, gazing fixedly at each other with a stare as ice-cold as the neon lights shining on them.
Finally both come to a standstill, being separated by an unsurmountable abyss.
This unreal scene sends chills down my spine. Where did the passion go, the dancers seem to ask  – can love simply disappear? How can people become estranged from each other, and how can they come closer again? And then…nothing happens.
Long minutes go by as the performers simply look at each other.
And this is one of the most powerful scenes I have ever seen in a theatre.
Because it rips the heart to pieces, mercilessly tears it to shreds by the gentle sounds of a piano, and it makes my life pass before my mind’s eye. Racing clouds, projected on a curtain in the background, seem to call out: Life is short – use it well! Come closer to each other instead of remaining strangers; use your time to live and to love passionately and to the fullest. Maybe this dance will tell you something completely different. I suppose there aren’t two people who will experience it in the same way. See for yourself.

More about aPart: Staatstheater Braunschweig.

Photos: Andreas Etter

Manuela Kuhar has moved to Braunschweig in 2013 and has fallen head over heels in love with this city. She works as a journalist as a side job, and loves writing about all kinds of culture-related topics.

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