Press comments
“Looking back into the Future”
WAZ Kultur, Essen, 09.03.2010
Sarah Heppekausen
Women - and also some men - walk across the stage in flimsy underclothing, tying their hair. They then begin trailing colourful textile fabrics behind them on their way across the stage. They begin rubbing their cloths, becoming laundresses, then slide across the floor to emulate cleaning women. The women carry out their lowly duties, while the men in suits - and only the men - stand in their way on occasion; unsettling them with talk of “structuring, optimisation, rationalisation”. Susanne Linke portrays woman as the suppressed being, working tirelessly yet with an air of exhaustion, trying to overcome her seemingly inevitable fate.
Susanne Linke choreographed her ‘Women’s Ballet’ (Frauenballet) in 1981. For the 2nd Biennial Dance Workshop, Linke rehearsed the piece once again: with the Folkwang Dance Studio ensemble, as she had done back then. Her societal concern may not be as topical as it had been 30 years ago - after all, issues of emancipation are probably not as pressing for this new generation of dancers - nevertheless: ‘Women’s Ballet’ still works in 2010. Maybe that is because of the highly concentrated and strict form of choreography, which remains untouched over time, or maybe because of the comedic factor, with which the dancers approach their respective role clichés. …
“The poet of movement”
New production of Susanne Linke’s “Frauenballett”
WAZ/NRZ, 01.03.2010
Beatrix Stan
Terre des Femmes Deutschland was formed in 1981. “Human rights for women” was the cry. Folkwang choreographer Susanne Linke created her “Frauenballett” for them in the same year. The new production of this famous piece of choreography was presented in a public preview in the Neue Aula.
It was a feeling of taking part in a world tour – something the piece has already clocked up. It heralded a week of theoretical engagement with dance, particularly reconstructions of choreography, in workshops with guest lecturers and young dancers from seven dance institutions.
Almost three decades since its composition, the piece seems both archaic and fresh – a quality that generally distinguishes great art. To the harmonious and contemplative sounds of the renaissance guitar, and also to the threatening-sounding avant-garde treatment of Krzysztof Penderecki’s version of the Magnificat, the twelve dancers (six women and six men) stepped into action. Three of the latter were in women’s clothes, silken-smooth in tank tops and pleasing pastels. In contrast to them, there were three men in grey and brown suits, their black shoes polished to a mirror shine. The colour, however, was on the part of the silken ones: they found themselves in possession of long lengths of fabric in red and yellow shades which were stepped upon, folded, worn and held taut in one new variation after another, transforming the otherwise chilly stage once again into a swirling sea of colour. …