LIGHT: Bach dances
Co-directed by Hofesh Shechter and John Fulljames
Choreography by Hofesh Shechter
Music by Johann Sebastian Bach
Orchestra: Concerto Copenhagen, conducted by Lars Ulrik Mortensen
Performed by Hofesh Shechter Company
Only by dancing in the abyss can we celebrate the LIGHT.
Inspired by Bach’s cantatas, LIGHT: Bach dances features real-life testimony of people facing death, in a moving, thought-provoking and life-affirming dance, music and theatre piece.
Awarded the prestigious FEDORA – VAN CLEEF & ARPELS Prize for Ballet 2020, LIGHT: Bach dances marks the second collaboration between internationally-renowned choreographer Hofesh Shechter and award-winning Opera Director John Fulljames. Following their hugely successful creative partnership as co-directors of Royal Opera House London’s 2015 production of Gluck’s Orphée et Eurydice, they reunite and collaborate with conductor Lars Ulrik Mortensen to co-create and direct this ambitious, multi-disciplinary work.
LIGHT: Bach dances includes a cast of 41 performers that appear on stage together, including Baroque orchestra Concerto Copenhagen conducted by Mortensen, 9 singers and 11 dancers. Shechter’s raw, fragile choreography brings a new currency to Bach’s cantatas, sung live and interwoven with a soundscape of voices. These are the recorded testimonies of people who are contemplating the end of their lives.
Set and Costume Designer: Tom Scutt
Lighting Designer: Paule Constable
Dancers: Robinson Cassarino, Chieh-Hann Chang, Frédéric Despierre, Rachel Fallon, Emma Farnell-Watson, Adam Khazhmuradov, Yeji Kim, Rosalia Panepinto, Jill Goh Su-Jen, Niek Wagenaar
Singers: Mary Bevan (1st Soprano), Jennie Lomm (2nd Soprano), Chisa Tanigaki (3rd Soprano), Mia Bergström (1st Alto), Kristin Mulders (2nd Alto), Gerald Geerink (1st Tenor), Zahid Siddiqui (2nd Tenor), Jacob Bloch Jespersen (1st Bass), Yannis Franҫois (2nd Bass)
Orchestra: Concerto Copenhagen
Co-produced by Royal Danish Theatre and Hofesh Shechter Company
World Premiere – 08 May 2021 at the Royal Danish Theatre, Copenhagen, Denmark
Reviews
★★★★★ ‘I've never experienced such a harmonious balance of music, song and dance, as if it were the same body, breathing as one.’ - Monna Dithmer, Politiken
‘I don't remember seeing anything more beautiful on the opera stage than the final scene of LIGHT: Bach dances’ - Camilla Marie Dahlgreen, Information
‘This creation ... confronts death to celebrate life. Combining dance, theatre and music with a high level of intensity, the result dazzles the heart as well as the mind.’ - L’Officiel Des Spectacles – 6 January 2023
‘this show ... is astonishingly beautiful and luminous' - Benoit Gaboriaud – L’Essantiart - 7 January 2023
‘This is a magnificent marriage of theatre, dance, music, opera singers and testimonies.......A delightful show’ - Safidin Alouache - La Revue de Spectacle – 16 January 2023
LIGHT: Bach dances is co-produced by Royal Danish Theatre and Hofesh Shechter Company
Winner of the FEDORA – VAN CLEEF & ARPELS Prize for Ballet 2020
Supported by
Cockayne - Grants for the Arts and The London Community Foundation
Restaging supported by the Maria Björnson Memorial Fund
In partnership with: Birmingham St Mary’s Hospice, UK
Liv & Død – National Association for Life & Death, Denmark
With thanks to: Vicky Bartlett, Denise Bates, Johanne Dal-Lewkovitch, Jean Fawcett,
Barry Gladwin, Nathan Johnson, Mogens Krabek, Anne Skjelbo
Hofesh Shechter Company is supported using public funding through Arts Council England and benefits from the support of BNP Paribas Foundation for the development of its projects