Much Hot Air
“FireWorks”
Gauthier Dance
Theaterhaus Stuttgart
Stuttgart, Germany
April 30, 2025
by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2025 by Ilona Landgraf
Gauthier Dance’s latest program, FireWorks, is an homage to the Theaterhaus Stuttgart, its home since the company’s foundation in 2007. This year, the Theaterhaus celebrates its fortieth anniversary. In honor of the occasion, the company’s director, Eric Gauthier, selected forty short pieces of music performed at the Theaterhaus over the past decades and asked ten choreographers (among them long-term collaborators) to choose one for a new piece for FireWorks.
A born entertainer, Gauthier introduced the program on opening night, welcomed some choreographers, and, in doing so, put the audience in a celebratory mood.
The company’s sixteen dancers sat on chairs lined along the wings with a red carpet between them. As they acted like an onstage audience, a trumpet solo signaled something big to come. It belonged to Ciocârliǎ și suite by Fanfare Ciocǎrlia to which the troupe’s artist in residence, Barak Marshall, created The Gathering, an assembly of athletic and showy solos and partner dances during which the dancers roared and cheered each other. (more…)
