gerade NOW!

gerade NOW! brings together two very different choreographies, Midnight Raga by Marco Goecke and Of Prophets and Puppets by Martin Harriague, which present the range of contemporary dance in a rousing and experimental way.

Unually, for exceptional choreographer Marco Goecke, music is not at the beginning of his work. In his duet Midnight Raga, whose title refers to classical Indian music, it is different: the music of Ravi Shankar forms the starting point. Despite the inspiration in the Oriental Indian, which is also reflected in the heavy blue silk fabrics of the costumes, Goecke’s very own nervous language of movement remains unmistakable. Following the 2017 premiere at the Nederlands Dans Theater (NDT 2), the choreography, which was tailor-made for the two dancers, undergoes another incarnation in the rehearsal at Hessisches Staatsballett.

In a cross-genre mix of dance, show and puppet show, French choreographer Martin Harriague’s Of Prophets and Puppets tells of power, manipulation and the influence of the media in the play of fact and fiction. In the format of a talk show, the piece illustrates in an exaggerated way how we humans rob ourselves of our own naturalness and become puppets, on whose strings both others and we ourselves so willingly pull. In the process, Harriague uses the tools of choreography and dance theater to stage a fictional encounter between the two iconic figures of Greta Thunberg and Donald Trump.