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UNERREICHBARE ORTE

Contemporary piece

I am inspired by Plato's "Symposium" and by relationships between two people …

Before starting his speech, Aristophanes warns the group that his eulogy to love may be more absurd than funny. His speech is an explanation of why people in love say they feel "whole" when they have found their love partner. He begins by explaining that people must understand human nature before they can interpret the origins of love and how it affects their own times. This is, he says because in primal times people had doubled bodies, with faces and limbs turned away from one another … these original people were very powerful. There were three sexes: the all male, the all female, and the "androgynous," who was half male, half female. The males were said to have descended from the sun, the females from the earth and the androgynous couples from the moon. These creatures tried to scale the heights of Olympus and planned to set upon the gods. Zeus thought about blasting them with thunderbolts but did not want to deprive himself of their devotions and offerings, so he decided to cripple them by chopping them in half, in effect separating the two bodies.

Ever since that time, people run around saying they are looking for their other half because they are really trying to recover their primal nature. Aristophanes then claims that when two people who were separated from each other find each other, they never again want to be separated.. If a man works with the god of Love, they will escape this fate and instead find wholeness.

Aristophanes from The Symposium by Plato

UNERREICHBARE ORTE
Contemporary piece

Created for the Hamburg Ballet
Premiere 19.6. 2005 at the State Opera Hamburg

Choreography: Jiří Bubeníček
Music: Otto Bubeníček
Stage design: Jiří Bubeníček
Costume design: Elsa Pavanel

Cast: Otto Bubeníček, Hélène Bouchet, Silvia Azzoni, Alexandre Riabko, Maria Kousouni, Yohan Stegli, Anja Behrend, Jiří Bubeníček
and the Hamburg Ballet

 

Pictures

Stage

Sketchbook

Costume design

Stage design

Costume design: Elsa Pavanel

Stage design: Jiří Bubeníček

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