Composed in 1920 by Maurice Ravel,
La Valse carried within it all the contradictions of its era: dusky tones and city lights, rumors of the end of the world and the euphoria of modernity. A choice raw material for the German creator, Raimund Hoghe pursues his confrontation with this flagship piece of music and dance history by anchoring Ravel’s musical odyssey in the port of today’s social unrest. This new creation brings to light orphan ghosts, refugees, migrants and survivors of all kinds, evoking the dramas of the human race through a masterful dance vocabulary of precision and subtlety. This waltz, with its unshakable rhythm, navigates the meanders of history like a perpetual ebb and flow. A poignant show that is very on point and relevant.
Raimund Hoghe
Raimund Hoghe was born in Wuppertal and began his career by writing portraits of outsiders and celebrities for the German weekly newspaper "Die Zeit". These were later compiled in several books. From 1980 to 1990 he worked as dramaturge for Pina Bausch's Tanztheater Wuppertal which also became the subject matter for two more books. Since 1989 he has been working on his own theatre pieces for various dancers and actors. 1992 started his collaboration with the artist Luca Giacomo Schulte, who is till now his artistic collaborator. In 1994 he produced his first solo for himself, "Meinwärts", which together with the subsequent "Chambre séparée" (1997) and "Another Dream" (2000) made up a trilogy on the 20th century.
Hoghe frequently works for television on projects such as "Lebensträume" (1994) and "Der Buckel", his 1997 hour-long self portrait for WDR (West German Radio and Television). His books have been translated into several languages and he has presented his performances all over Europe, as well as in North and South America, Asia and Australia. He lives in Düsseldorf and has been awarded several prizes including the "Deutscher Produzentenpreis für Choreografie" in 2001, the French Prix de la Critique in 2006 for "Swan Lake, 4 Acts" (in the category "Best Foreign Piece"). Critics from the magazin ballet-tanz awarded him "Dancer of the Year" for 2008. Books about his theatre works were published in France, Germany, Great Britain and the United States.
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