Photo: Rosa-Frank.com
Raimund Hoghe is visiting Poland in January. He will show his work An Evening with Judy twice: on 15 January at Cracow’s Cricoteca (7 pm; ul. Nadwiślańska 2-4) and 18 January at Poznań’s Old Brewery (7 pm; ul. Półwiejska 42). The choreographer will be joined on stage by Takashi Ueno.
Raimund Hoghe?s new solo piece An Evening with Judy continues his series of singer portraits. The starting point of his latest work is the iconic American singer and actress, Judy Garland. She began her career as a child star but died at the age of 47 from an overdose of sleeping tablets. Individual songs by Garland could be heard in several pieces by Raimund Hoghe to date but now he has decided to spread out and put the unusually broad repertoire of the star in the context of her life and times. As an actress, Judy Garland was also more versatile than the clichés put across: not only did she perform in gaudy 1960s musicals but impressed audiences with her performance in films such as the black and white Judgement at Nuremberg. Her role in this film about the Nuremberg trials forms the link to Raimund Hoghe?s first solo, Meinwarts (1994) in which he addresses the story of the Jewish tenor Joseph Schmidt who was persecuted by the Nazis and died in a detention camp in Switzerland. Along with his homage to Maria Callas, 36 Avenue Georges Mandel, An Evening with Judy forms a trilogy with three unusual singer personalities at its centre.
Concept, choreography, dance and set: Raimund Hoghe
Artistic collaboration: Luca Giacomo Schulte
Guest performer: Takashi Ueno (dance)
Lighting: Raimund Hoghe, Arno Truschinski
Sound: Johannes Sundrup
Production: Raimund Hoghe ? Hoghe & Schulte GbR (Düsseldorf) / Cie VENTO (Paris)
Co-production: Théâtre Garonne Toulouse, Theater im Pumpenhaus Münster, tanzhaus nrw Düsseldorf
Supported by Ministerium für Familie, Kinder, Jugend, Kultur und Sport des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen, Kulturamt der Landeshauptstadt Düsseldorf, La Ménagerie de Verre (Paris) dans le cadre du Studiolab and by the NATIONALES PERFORMANCE NETZ (NPN) International Guest Performance Fund for Dance, which is funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media on the basis of a decision by the German Bundestag.
Raimund Hoghe was born in Wuppertal and began his career by writing theoretical and critical pieces pertaining to art and dance, as well as portraits of outsiders and celebrities for the German weekly newspaper “Die Zeit”. He than worked as dramaturge for Pina Bausch’s Tanztheater Wuppertal, which also became the subject matter for his two books. Since the 1990s he has been working as stage director and choreographer in his own right. His works are poetic pieces, investigating timeless themes of alienation, exclusion, (lack of) love, and loneliness, and combining the best achievements and experiences of classical dance theatre and aesthetics of minimalist art that inspires the latest trends in choreography. The fusion of glorious tradition, his original artistic vision and a specific musical sensitivity has brought about an art of unique value and aesthetics, placing Raimund Hodge among top European choreographers of the turn of the centuries. His personal story (burdened with disability from early childhood, he was also excluded as a homosexual in the 1970s and 80s) and artistic path are an excellent outset to analyse the phenomenon of dance theatre and see how artists of this genre transform it, adding their personal experiences and sensitivity. Hoghe has created over 10 choreographies and performs in all of them. He frequently works for television, while his books have been translated into many languages. He has been awarded several prizes, including the Deutscher Produzentenpreis für Choreografie in 2001 and the French Prix de la Critique in 2006 for Swan Lake, 4 Acts (as the Best Foreign Piece). Critics from the magazine ballet-tanz named him Dancer of the Year for
