Israel Galván
La Consagración de la Primavera
Concept and choreography
Israel Galván
With
Israel Galván (dance)
Daria van den Bercken, Gerard Bouwhuis (piano)
Music
"Le Sacre du Printemps" by Igor Stravinsky
Reduction for piano for four hands by the composer, here with two pianos
“Sonata K87” by Domenico Scarlatti
“Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues” by Frederic Rzewski
“Sevillana del siglo XVIII”
Sound
Pedro León / Félix Vázquez
Lights
Benito Jiménez / Valentin Donaire
Costumes
Micol Notarianni
Technical director
Pedro León
Stage manager
Balbi Parra
Management
Rosario Gallardo
Production
IGalván Company
Coproducers
Théâtre de la Ville - Paris, Sadler’s Wells - London, Mû-Lausanne, Théâtre de Nîmes, Scène conventionnée d’intérêt national - art et création - Danse contemporaine, Teatro della Pergola - Fondazione Teatro della Toscana - Florence, MA scène nationale – Pays de Montbéliard, Théâtre de Vidy-Lausanne
With the support of
INAEM-Instituto Nacional de las Artes Escénicas y de la Música, La Loterie Romande, Pro Helvetia, Fondation suisse pour la culture du Canton de Vaud, Fondation Leenaards, Flamenco Biënnale Nederland
[The program can be also presented with local pianists]
“He is a Barbarian endowed with every commodity” said Debussy of his friend Stravinsky. And indeed, reaching the right blend of science and savagery may be the major difficulty when it comes to Rite of Spring. As prompted Leonard Bernstein: “This piece used to be considered practically unplayable back in 1913 and through the 20s and into the 30s”. How does one tackle this mixture of brute force and refinement, of telluric quakes and melodies? How to apprehend these rhythms so foreign to Western music and puzzled even Pierre Boulez? On what undiscovered part of the globe can these – sometimes creaky – tributes to folkloric Slavic music be taken?
Everyone remembers the outrage when the work first premiered with the Ballets Russes at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées: a pitched battle… spiraling into a battle with no pitch at all – and becoming one of the greatest artistic scandals of the 20th Century. Yet in spite of its famed difficulty, the music echoes a pulsation so profound, so primary that Rite of Spring has eventually become a classic of both music and dance, inspiring choreographers as diverse as Martha Graham, Maurice Béjart, Pina Bausch, Angelin Preljocaj…
Israel Galván destabilizes with a regularity of his own, offering shows both joyous and austere, provoking without any deliberate provocation all sorts of shivers and quakes. The expression of a freedom both inspired as ingenuous, and of a trajectory which cultivates continuity in ruptures, and logically pursues its course with Stravinsky. Guided by the two pianists, Galván is seen here for the first time confronted to a music score... Which does mean not that everything is already written. To these three intrepid artists, to these seekers of untold stories, Rite of Spring offers the most seductive dangers. And they are set on exposing the musical colossus to reveal its freaky bones, which defy all laws of musical anatomy. Moreover, they’re trying to recapture the essence, the music before the paper. Finding novelty, while respecting the text will thus be a new kind of madness… (Lola Gruber)
tour dates
Germany Ludwigsburg, Schloss Festspiele 20-21 May 2023
Netherlands Arnhem Piano Biënnale 23 April 2023
Italy Brescia, Teatro Grande 3 March 2023 (with pianists Andrea Rebaudengo, Valentina Messa)
France Montpellier Danse, Opéra Berlioz | Le Corum 24 February 2023 (with pianists David Kadouch and David Bismuth)
United Kingdom London, Sadler's Wells 25-26 November 2022
Germany Heidelberg, HebelHalle 19 November 2022 (with pianists Darya Dadykina, Vitaliy Kyianytsia)
France Pau Zenith 14 March 2022
France Sainte-Maxime Carré 11 March 2022
France Perpignan L’Arcipel 8 March 2022
Germany Koln, Stastenhaus, 4-5 March 2022
Netherlands Amsterdam, Flamenco Biennale, Nederland Stadsschouwburg 10 November 2021
France Metz, Theatre Arsenal, 29 September 2021
Romania Sibiu International Festival, Thalia Hall 25 - 26 August 2021 (with pianists Andrada Ștefan & Sabina Oprea)
Japan Aichi Prefectural Art Theatre 23 -24 June 2021 (with pianists Shu Katayama, Tatsuto Masuda)
Japan Yokohama Kanagawa Arts Theatre 18 -20 June 2021 (with pianists Shu Katayama, Tatsuto Masuda)
France Gradignan Theatre des Quatre Saisons 10 March 2020
France Paris Théâtre de la Ville 7-15 January 2020
Switzerland Lausanne Théâtre Vidy 23-28 November 2019 (opening)
©Jean Louis Duzert / ©Laurent Philippe / ©Leonardo Rossi