LANDSCAPE . SHADOWS

Photo: Wolfgang Hilse

 CHOREOGRAPHER: JUAN CARLOS GARCIA / LANÒNIMA IMPERIAL BARCELONA
MUSIC: JOAN SAURA, XAVIER MARISTANY
WORLD-PREMIERE: 1998 l KOMISCHE OPER BERLIN
DURATION OF PERFORMANCE: 65 MIN
NUMBER OF DANCERS: 8 PLUS 8 ACTORS
RESUMPTION:
05. NOVEMBER 2002, THEATER IM PFALZBAU LUDWIGSHAFEN

The resumption of "Landscape with Shadows" have been premiered in November 2002. Choreographer

from the Spanish state of Catalonia, is the founder and leader of the Lanònima Imperial. The project is in co-operation with Gregor Seyffert, Dancer-Laureate of Berlin, and First Soloist of the Komische Oper Berlin for many years.

The successful piece premiered in Berlin at the Hebbel Theatre in 1996. The Komische Oper took over the production because of its great success at own 1998-99 season.

In winter 1999, the Director of the Komische Oper and the Lanònima Company agreed to assign responsibility for the project to Gregor Seyffert & Compagnie. This was done because of structural changes, the engagement of Gregor Seyffert, as well as the wish of the dancers themselves. 

This agreement enabled an internationally pre-eminent artistic work to be secured and to be integrated in the repertoire of Gregor Seyffert & Compagnie. 

It was then possible to win choreographer Juan Carlos Garcia for the revival by Gregor Seyffert & Compagnie and a total of eight dancers. The first performance of the new work "Landscape.Shadows" is intended for the beginning of the 2002/03 season. Plans are in preparation for performances at international industrial sites that correspond to the powerful, expressive, and extraordinary energy of the piece.

Press Reviews

"In its temperament and powerful unfolding, it is an overwhelming homage to dance as the direct expression of the emotions of human life. Juan Carlos Garcia possesses a truly unusual movement imagination, and he uses it to challenge the virtuoso abilities of his soloists in such a way that they seem to simply explode in the craziest acrobatic variations on the floor and in the air."  

SFB Television – Gallery of the Theatre Program  

„The scenes develop nonchalantly and casually even though they are suffused with the high tension of the driving music by Joan Saura... The encounters are highly acrobatic crashes, full of ambivalence, as aggressive as they are passionate... Garcia holds back even the slightest hint of resolution, rather he keeps the action floating in an explosive tension."

Süddeutsche Zeitung  

"Dizzying leaps, abrupt changes of mood, ironic breaks. The intensity of the dance and music reinforce and drive each other on. The class of the dancers – Gregor Seyffert, Angela Reinhardt, and Heike Keller are to be singled out – and the excitement of the choreography are at a peak."  

Berliner Zeitung

"In 'Landscape with Shadows', Juan Carlos Garcia completes his stride into a radically new dance esthetic."

Der Tagesspiegel

 Triumphant "Landscape with Shadows"
Berlin Kurier Newspaper Feb. '98

Love and passion – jealousy and hate. The entire spectrum of human emotions are in "Landscape with Shadows", a very successful work by Juan Carlos Garcia at the Komische Oper Berlin.

It is truly not a simple piece. But the dismal, destructive ambience of the almost bare, black stage gives the dancers ample opportunity for brilliant action. And the dancers storm with all physical power. Swathed in stage fog that seems to stream out of the nozzle of a pest exterminator, the dancers awake to real life. Space-filling combinations alternate with crisp break dance leaps with a variety that couldn't be beat in the Bronx. And then finally. A lamp hangs suspended, circling a little above the floor, and then the pairs of dancers enter. Two men, Gregor Seyffert, Arturo Gama, joust for a woman, Angela Reinhardt. On the other of the stage women are competing and their faces flare in jealous lightning.

The motto seems to be, there is no landscape with just the sun, the shadows of life are unfolded here too. The music by Joan Saura and Xavier Maristany is wondrous, sometimes thudding and droning, sometimes tenderly caressing. The effort was worth it, to create a second part, entitled "I've Never Been There", to follow the first part, premiered two years ago. After the pink kitsch "Purple Dreams", the Tanztheater takes up the real world again, in all its shadings.

Patricia Parsow

Strong Feelings in a Ménage à trois
Bonner Rundschau
May 24, 2003

Gregor Seyffert & Compagny thrill their audience at the bonntanzt Festival

Bonn. On Wednesday, Gregor Seyffert and his Berlin-based company demonstrated to the opera house audience that there is still a lot more to dancing. Exceptional dancers like Seyffert continue to emerge. Taking into consideration the broad range of ballet and dance theatre we had seen so far during the bonntanzt festival he surely came closer to the essence of dancing than anyone else.

Seyffert, who danced as a first soloist at Komische Oper for a long time, is really a phenomenon. Landscape with Shadows by the Spanish choreographer Juan Carlos Garcia provided him and his dancers with an exceptionally rewarding subject. It has all the emotions that dance needs. This choreography is split-up into encounters of two or three dancers and fused into powerful movements that are typical of the Spaniard’s aesthetics.

Garcia does not tell a story. There is just an unending fluctuation in ever changing constellations. They are only kept in line by a ménage à trois in the centre around which two men trying in every imaginable way, in their pursuit of the grace of a woman, are put to test. One of them is Gregor Seyffert. Seyffert and the woman in red Angela Reinhardt form the centre. Specially Seyffert jumping and landing in combinations that only figure skaters could achieve by performing all their quadruples at once. This virtuosity would be unthinkable if it was not for Seyffert’s classical background. He continues to avail himself on his elegant flexibility allowing him to show complicated figures as if they were truly natural. Alone on the empty stage of the opera it was very impressive indeed.

The forceful music of Joan Saura and Xavier Maristany are the inspiration for Garcia’s artistic and kinaesthetic ideas in his choreography. It is more than just focusing on this mènage à trois. It is mass movement and action created by merely eight dancers who are set on each other in clinch, falling or tumbling around. In Alexej Dublinin the Bonn audience saw a familiar face. Ten years ago he was a Romeo and more to Valery Panow. Of course there was a great applause. The company danced to a full house. Dance continues to attract audiences…

(ter)

Juan Carlos Garcia
choreographer

Born in Bilbao, Spain, Juan Carlos Garcia began classical and modern dance studies at the Institut del Theatre in Barcelona. He received scholarships from the Centre National de la Danse Contemporaine in Angers, France, and from the Cunningham Dance Studio in New York. Garcia was a member of the French ensemble Emile Dubois Compagnie. 

He founded the Compagnie Lanònima Imperial in Barcelona in 1986 and his very first choreography for the company, "Eppur si muove", was awarded the First Prize of the Tortola Valencia Competition. The company won renown with international performances, including the Opéra Paris, of "Castor i Pol.lux", 1989, and "Kairos", 1990. 

Garcia received numerous awards, such as the Grand Prix of the 8th International Dance Festival of Zagreb, 1991, and the First Prize of the Second International Suzanne Delial Dance Competition in Tel Aviv, 1994. Garcia presented "Auguris per a h.“ at the Cultural Festival of the Olympic Games in Barcelona in 1992. 

Juan Carlos Garcia and his company, Lanònima Imperial have engaged in co-productions throughout Europe. The Holland Festival Amsterdam; the Bern, Switzerland, Days of Dance; the Schwetzinger Festival; the Holland Dance Festival at Den Haag; the Nordrhein-Westfalen Festival (a German State); the Teatro Comunale de Firenze; and the Festival RomaEuropa. Garcia has also produced and choreographed pieces for the Ballet de Zaragoza, the Institut del Theatre Barcelona, the Opera Ballet Florence, and in Berlin for the Komische Oper, and the Deutsche Oper Berlin. 

Garcia has worked with composers Joan Saura and Xavier Maristany since they collaborated on "Moving Landscape" in 1995.