A somewhat mortuary finale with a pile of ashes and a photo of the deceased in the proscenium. But if the late is Raimund Hoge it can be accepted. Because Hoge, in fact, was one of the most unsettling characters of the dance theater scene, not just German. This homage, “An Evening with Raimund” conceived by his dancers at the Montpellier Danse Festival could only end with this funeral image, but also ironic and poetic as he was, Hoge. Journalist in Düsseldorf and then Dramaturg for Pina Bausch, a physique totally unsuitable for dance (of very short stature and with a hump), Hoge at one point in his career got involved by going up on stage and highlighting, shirtless, your difference. In Montpellier Danse (scheduled until 3 July) the director Jean Paul Montanari, understood how special and courageous he was and over time invited him often. Hoge left in 2021. Now ten of his dancers and collaborators have sewn a “Best of”. Among them Luca Giacomo Schulte, but the dancer Ornella Balestra could not be missing. Her muse is her, with her fiery red hair and the splendid sinuous arms of a swan that Hoge has always emphasized.
The whole plays on the queer and slightly snobbish soul of Hoge. So off with many of the icons evoked in his passages often not in the original language, to create further distancing. Starting from Joséphine Baker to get to “Et Maintenant”, up to “Ciao amore” which, however, danced by everyone like a twist, loses that sad flavor that reminds us of Tenco and Dalida.
Another special character is the South African (white) Robin Orlin. Her show, as always with a kilometric title (“We wear our wheels with priceand slap you strees with color… we said bonjour to satan in 1820”) stages a colorful group of South African (black) dancers and singers. The theme is rickshaws and their drivers. But since we are not in China, but in South Africa., They become “Zulu rikshaws”. Singing and dancing are obviously enthralling and the audience welcomes the performers with enthusiasm at the end. There remains a doubt (which emerged already at the “Spring Festival” by Pina Bausch with black performers in Spoleto). How much colonialism? How much complacency and unacceptable racism are hidden behind these operations?
The French have always paid great attention to dance. Like the national choreographic centers. In particular that of Angers born in 1978, where the older ones have passed, and which brings together a center for choreographic creation, a high school of dance and a dance program. Today it is directed by Noé Soulier. 35 years old, Invited two years ago to the Venice Biennale, choreographer and philosopher, ex enfant prodige, in “First Memory” Soulier plays and establishes a series of gestures that he repeats and moves to different areas of the scene, entrusting them to his interpreters. intellectual, very different from the carnal and sensual one staged by the Israeli Ohad Naharin in “2019”. Here in Montpellier, as in Orsolina 28, in Monferrato, where he had his European debut https://www.lastampa.it/cultura/2022/06/20/news/2019_naharin_si_mette_a_nudo-5421257
the scene is a wide walkway that crosses the space with spectators on either side. The Piedmontese gave him thunderous applause. The French broke into a standing ovation.