15 YEARS ALIVE
Mauro Bigonzetti, Pression
Alejandro Cerrudo, PACOPEPEPLUTO
Itzik Galili, The Sofa
Eric Gauthier, ABC
Dunja Jocić, world premiere N.N.
Ohad Naharin, Minus 16
Short film premieres by Marco Goecke and Hofesh Shechter

The Dance Company Theaterhaus Stuttgart has a wonderful reason to celebrate in the 2022/23 season: Gauthier Dance is now 15 years young! The title of the anniversary programme says it a little differently: 15 YEARS ALIVE, thus making us aware that its survival and the artistic success of the past 15 years could never be taken for granted. Werner Schretzmeier's decision to set up a new dance company under the direction of the then 30-year-old Eric Gauthier was courageous and remains a financial feat to this day. At the same time, audiences in Stuttgart and around the world can no longer imagine a dance world without Gauthier Dance. After all, the contemporary ensemble has danced itself to the very top. In the tanz yearbook 2022, Gauthier Dance got the highest number of mentions across all categories and was the only German company to become a „Highlight of the 2021/22 season“ – alongside the Zurich Ballet, the Vienna State Ballet and the Nederlands Dans Theater.

15 YEARS ALIVE takes the audience on an emotional and wide-ranging journey through the past 15 years – with pieces and choreographers that have a special significance for Gauthier Dance and set milestones in the development of the company. Accordingly, Eric Gauthier selected works that are partly humorous and partly very virtuoso, reflecting the company's focus at the time – „the sunny side of modern dance“ (Gauthier).
Mauro Bigonzetti, the great dance aesthete from Italy, has supported Gauthier Dance from the beginning. His riveting choreography Pression was part of the second programme High Five. Set to music by the antipodes Helmut Lachenmann and Franz Schubert, Bigonzetti once more models the bodies of his dancers into a poetic, sculptural, impressively virtuoso choreography.
The Gauthier Dance repertoire includes three pieces by Alejandro Cerrudo, starting with Lickety-Split from Lucky Seven and concluding with the atmospheric world premiere They're in Your Head for the anniversary programme BIG FAT TEN. PACOPEPEPLUTO from the bill Infinity achieved cult status with the audience. The three solos to songs by the „King of Cool“ Dean Martin are a perfect fit for the fabulous male dancers of Gauthier Dance. Cerrudo gets right to the heart of the choreographic matter: sexy, ironic and with a seemingly nude cast ...
Star choreographer Itzik Galili is another of the company's first and most loyal friends. In The Sofa, also from the second programme High Five, six minutes are all he needs for a hilarious danced comedy with several literal „turns“.
It goes without saying that Eric Gauthier will also contribute a piece to the birthday programme. His tongue-in-cheek solo ABC takes theatregoers through the letters of the dance alphabet – from A for Arabesque to L for Lift to V for Variations. But Gauthier wouldn't be Gauthier if, among the whole technical vocabulary, he hadn't sneaked in a lot of expressions taken from the real life of a dancer ...

But the audience will not only be taken on a trip down memory lane – there are also plenty of new discoveries to be made. For a world premiere, Eric Gauthier was able to bring in one of today’s most sought-after pacesetters in contemporary dance: the Serbian-Dutch filmmaker and choreographer Dunja Jocić. Her mesmerising, multimedia dance theatre creations are produced in collaboration with internationally renowned companies and artists of all genres. Most recently, her piece The Panther was awarded the famous Dutch Swan („De Zwaan“) for the Best Dance Production 2020/2021. What’s more, her new work for the anniversary will be a premiere in two respects. Dunja Jocić is choreographing it for the Gauthier Dance JUNIORS who will, for the first time, present a production of their own on the big Theaterhaus stage.

But 15 YEARS ALIVE does not only offer live dance. There will also be two short film premieres, created by the two artists in residence Marco Goecke and Hofesh Shechter. The overall theme gave them maximum freedom – it was simply „being alive“. For the realisation, both were inspired by extraordinary locations. For Marco Goecke, the team managed to organise a shoot in his favourite Stuttgart location, the Hotel Schlossgarten. The hotel is currently empty due to a general renovation – and the rooms radiate a strong aura of abandonment and melancholy. Hofesh Shechter’s choice was visually at least as spectacular. The film was shot in the industrial architecture of the Wizemann Areal and in a morgue – and it bears his signature in every respect. After all, he took on the jobs of choreographer, composer, cinematographer, editor and even actor, in the role of a forensic doctor!

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