Medea

Pascal Dusapin

Sasha Waltz

After her debut opera production of 2005, »Dido & Aeneas« by Henry Purcell, the choreographer Sasha Waltz turned her attention to the tragedy Medea. At the centre of her work are previous exegeses of the myth as well as contemporary interpretations that contrast with the antique image painting Medea as fury, revenger and child-murderer. Christa Wolf’s Novel »Medea. Stimmen« provides important impulses. Sasha Waltz appraises the feminine power of the healer and the mother – thus in her work the creative and destructive powers of the character are situated in pronounced tension. Pascal Dusapin’s 1991 composition »Medeamaterial« with the text by Heiner Müller, reworked in cooperation with the Akademie für Alte Musik and the Vocalconsort Berlin, is the basis for this choreographic-musical examination of the Medea myth. The interpretation of this mythic material allows the choreographer to engage with all her artistic capabilities. The world of antiquity is made palpable by way of expansive group formations, the archaic vocabulary of images melds with that of the movement.