Saburo Teshigawara ^(JPN) Lost in Dance 26-27 September 2019

Programme

Stripped down, poetic and light as a feather. "Lost in dance" is masterful dance art in its rawest, most concentrated form; as always when acclaimed veteran Saburo Teshigawara creates his artworks.

Teshigawara is truly an all-rounder in the true sense of the word. Choreographer, but also writer, artist, lighting designer and stage designer.

"I don't live to make dance. When there is something I want to express, if I hold a pen it will be poetry, if I have a canvas in front of me it will be a painting, and if there is space around me it will become a dance."
SABURO TESHIGAWARA

And in his works, he also likes to do everything. In the duet "Lost in dance" he is responsible for directing, lighting design, sound collage and also dances on stage himself.
But the real protagonist of "Lost in dance" is Rihoko Sato - Teshigawara's partner for over 20 years. Inspired by Teshigawara's universe of movement but with its own original expression, Sato's swirling, virtuosic creature is a thoroughly marvellous experience.

"Lost in dance" premiered in Havana, Cuba, in the summer of 2018, but now comes to Dansens Hus in an expanded, reworked full-evening version.

No matter how much you dream of death
You sense the fear of surviving forever
The element that is or isn't there
You lose yourself, with no time to even mourn about it
With a certain innocent meaninglessness
And a profound yet light, endless emotion
Dance appears from qualitative movement
You do not exist here anymore
You may not know it yet
But you keep on dancing even though you do not exist
Nobody can touch you
Not even yourself
The fragility of beauty
The strange yet fearful fragile dream is like death
No matter how much you dream of death
You sense the fear of surviving forever
To the world on the opposite bank, is it of joy, or sorrow?
Saburo Teshigawara

About the choreographer

Saburo Teshigawara

Mr Teshigawara was born in 1953 in Tokyo. He was trained in classical ballet.
- I wanted to study ballet at the beginning to know what the ballet is, why the technique is so good. In terms of technique - what happens with the body? It was a very essential study. But I wanted to be a creator," he says in an interview with Karolina Bieszczad-Roley.

In the mid-1980s, Saburo Teshigawara started the company Karas together with Kei Miyata. The duo started by exploring the concept of the "empty body". From there he developed his own style where air is at the centre; air both as in breathing and as an element. These are also feelings and moods that permeate his choreography and movement universe.

In recent years, Swedish audiences have had the opportunity to get to know Saburo Teshigawara at Drottningholm Palace Theatre, where he choreographed and directed the critically acclaimed 'Pygmalion' last summer. In 2016, two of his works, Tranquil and Metamorphosis, was shown at the Gothenburg Opera.
We last saw him at Dansens Hus in 2003 with the work 'Bones in pages'.