The Vienna State Ballet’s final premiere under the direction of Martin Schläpfer presents three performances by a younger generation of choreographers featuring orchestral works by Lisa Streich and Michael Gordon. The stylistically diverse evening—both musically and choreographically—is held together brilliantly by Canadian conductor Jean-Michaël Lavoie, who, among other projects, conducted Luca Francesconi’s Quartett at Teatro alla Scala in collaboration with the theater group La Fura dels Baus.

Lisa Streich: HIGH

“For me it was always a dream to write for dance – an art in which body and music embrace or even love each other in the best case,” confesses Streich. Commissioned by the Vienna State Ballet, she has now composed her first dance score for Louis Stiens’s choreography "High". Louis Stiens sought inspiration in the overwhelming sight of the summer sun, early in the morning after staying up all night. Dynamic, multi-layered situations for soloists and ensemble respond to the instability of breaking march themes and spectral chords in Lisa Streich’s commissioned composition with Stiens’ technical, theatrical language of movement. An ominous celebration that refuses to end and, in its polarity of “high” and “low”, the divine and the everyday, casts an ironic glance at the continuum – our present lives. 

View work details

Reviews on HIGH

"The music is an original composition by Lisa Streich, who likes to incorporate waltzes and and polkas into her compositions, but is also very sparse in areas. The dances only reinforce a sense of absurdity pushed to the extreme. It largely feels ironic and sarcastic. At the end we see not the expected build to an ecstatic climax, but instead a pause."

"Lisa Streich has created a score that has everything to offer between revue, march and carnival."

Program note on HIGH

For his Vienna premiere, Louis Stiens chose not to work with existing compositions as with recent work for the Leipzig Ballet, Ballet Graz, and the Zürich Ballet. Instead, he chose to enter into a dialogue with a composer. His thinking is strongly influenced by the image and conceptual approaches, and he is drawn to collaboration with composers – their work, often abstract and created in secluded isolation, contrasts with that of a choreographer who deals with people and their interaction in physical space.

Read more excerpts of the program note by Anne de Paço, Chief Dramaturg of the Vienna State Ballet.

Score of HIGH

Michael Gordon: Rewriting Beethoven's Seventh Symphony

Italian choreographer Alessandra Corti debuted a world premiere set to Michael Gordon's Rewriting Beethoven's Seventh Symphony. The title of Corti's work, "Aerea"—a palindrome without a beginning or an end—alludes to its ethereal and elusive nature exploring the theme of human identity, alongside Gordon’s humorous and disconcerting take on a classic. Rewriting Beethoven's Seventh Symphony has previously been choreographed by Gustavo Ramirez Sansano for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, and the work has been performed throughout Germany by orchestras including the Bamberg Symphony, Essen Philharmonie, Düsseldorfer Symphoniker, and in the UK by the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

Review on Rewriting Beethoven's Seventh Symphony

"The evening opens with “AEREA”, set to Cat Power’s Wild is the Wind and Michael Gordon’s Rewriting Beethoven's Seventh Symphony. Though Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony has seen its fair share of dances, Gordon’s Beethoven fits Alessandra Corti’s contemporary dance vocabulary far better. Dancers emerge from the stage fog like shadows, developing vivid images in costumes from Lucia Vonrhein, from which they break away for short solos. It is these moments of departure from a conventional choreographic language that speak to the revolutionary side of Beethoven’s music."

Score of Rewriting Beethoven's Seventh Symphony