This year’s Festival of Contemporary Theatre and Dance euro-scene Leipzig is themed “Excavations”. One focus is dedicated to the reconstruction of historically important dance pieces and so it comes as no surprise that the reconstruction of Gerhard Bohner’s “Zwei Giraffen tanzen Tango – Bremer Schritte” (original 1980) is on the programme at the Schaubühne Lindenfels on 11 and 12 November 2017. Choreographer Helge Letonja has developed this funded project of the Tanzfonds Erbe – An Initiative of the German Federal Cultural Foundation with steptext dance project, Bremen, based on historical film material about Bohner’s work from the archive of the German Dance Film Institute Bremen.

“Two Giraffes Dance Tango – Bremen Steps” VIDEO EXCERPT

Dance piece

Conception and choreography: Helge Letonja

According to the original choreography by Gerhard Bohner (1980)

With an introduction by Heide-Marie Härtel and Helge Letonja

Scurrile figures and elements of the absurd characterise this dance piece, which Gerhard Bohner, a pioneer of German dance history, created with 10 dancers in Bremen in 1980. 36 years later, choreographer Helge Letonja questions the historical model and opens up new associative spaces. The “steps” of the current production design their forward in the here and now. With the historical pioneering phase of German dance theatre in Bremen as well as tomorrow in mind, Letonja searches for further developments: Bohner’s subjects, the absurd, the relationships between individuals and stereotypes, the living and the dead, the figure of art and the human being – how do they dance today?

30 minutes before each performance, Heide-Marie Härtel, Deutsches Tanzfilminstitut Bremen, and Helge Letonja, steptext dance project Bremen, will give an introduction in joint conversation with a wealth of unique, historical, previously unpublished film excerpts of Bohner’s piece.

Funded by DANCE FUND ERBE – An initiative of the Federal Cultural Foundation

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