Styx

by Melanie Lane

assistant to the choreographer / rehearsal director at Staatstheater Braunschweig

In her new work, the renowned choreographer Melanie Lane explores the transformation of the body after death.

Choreography and Video Melanie Lane in collaboration with the dancers
Dancers ensemble of Staatstheater Braunschweig: Giovanni Fumarola, Noriko Nishidate, Francesca Castellari, Brendon Feeney, Mátyás Ruzsom, María Gabriela Luque, Miriam Kaya, Lucas Roque Machado, Rei Okunishi, Dariusz Nowak, Filipa Amorim, Michael D' Ambrosio, Nao Tokuhashi, Razul Singh Gautam, Tiziano Pilloni
Music Yamila Rios Manzanares

Costumes Don Arentino and Muyao Zhang
Artistic assistance / rehearsal director Marion Sparber
Stagedesign Katharina Andes

Dramaturgy Ira Goldbecher
Synopsis Styx interweaves ancient mythologies with contemporary questions surrounding digital legacy management, creating a speculative utopia in which human beings might experience a form of resurrection through their digital remains.

Duration 85 min

Styx has been performed at Germany Staatstheater Braunschweig in Season 2026/27

Photos: Lioba Schöneck

Sadness comes

Sadness came to tea last night as she’s often done before, but I didn’t let her in this time: I stopped her at the door.

Choreography Marion Sparber in collaboration with the dancers / students of Kunsthumaniora Antwerp, Belgium
Duration 16 min

Synopsis

Sadness came to tea last night as she’s often done before, 

but I didn’t let her in this time, I stopped her at the door.

“I’m off to meet with friends”, I said , “your timing isn’t right!

I can’t allow your atmosphere, it’s not the place tonight”.

But sadness wouldn’t take the hint, her manners lack finesse. Her pace was slow and heavy, yet she kept up nonetheless.

And even when I took my place amongst my laughing friends, she squeezed herself right in-between, her boldness never ends.

And I was sure my friends would see this spectre at the feast and somehow think me lesser 

for inviting such a beast. But no, their warmth was undeterred as if nothing was new.

I think perhaps they know by now 

I sometimes come as two!

And even sadness seemed to glow a lighter shade of grey to know that she’s accepted seemed to lighten up her day.

So let your sad accompany you, don’t think herhard to bear, no need to face her all alone, just pull an extra chair.

Sadness comes has been performed in Belgium Antwerp

Pictures Kathleen Michiels

Reality Check

REALITY CHECK Reality noun. ['ˌriːˈæləˌtiː'] the state of being actual or real. An occasion when someone must consider the unpleasant truth about something rather than trying to ignore it. An occasion when you are reminded of how things are in the real world, rather than how you would like things to be.

Choreography Marion Sparber and Alan Fuentes Guerra in collaboration with the dancers

Dancers Irene Valesano, Nicolas Sanchéz and Jean-Loup Gayrard
Duration 75 min

Video: Yasu

Production: Mu Festival and Parco Culturale Altalanga

Synopsis The dance theater piece Reality Check deals with the question of credibility and the blurring of the boundaries between reality and absurdity. The piece consciously tests our perception and offers contradictions that make the audience question statements and become aware of their own perspective. Through video projections we create surreal spaces and multiple layers. The projections create visual shifts between reality and digital illusion, underlining the theme of distorted perception. Reality check plays with truth and deception and creates a constant friction between authenticity and staging. Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning.

~ Louise Erdrich

Reality Check was performed at Parco Culturale Altalanga at the Bergolo Theatre Italy

Pictures Merche Moriana

Eight (remake)

in the frame of the evening Schwarz Weiss by Strado Compagnia Danza

A danced plea for colors

Black-and-white thinking is widespread, but dangerous: it only allows for all or nothing. Success or failure. Victory or defeat. Perfect or not at all. Our fast-paced, media-driven world favors this way of thinking. When the complexity of reality seems unmanageable and threatening, when floods of information meet short attention spans, thinking in extremes becomes more attractive.

Choreography Marion Sparber Dancers Júlia Chacón I Espí, Letícia Conduto, Valerie, Lauren Damen and Nicholas Taraj
Duration 15:30 min Production Ray Lacsamana
Assistance Caterina Salvadori
Costume Christina Schlumberger and Agnete Costura
Music Stephane Pigneul and Rob Hayden, Erikk McKenzie
Light Paul Stauber
Stagedesign Domenico Strazzeri
Photo  Nik Schölzel
Invited by Domenico Strazzeri / Strado Compagnia Danza
Synopsis In reality, extremes are completely unlikely. Life takes place between the poles: across the entire color spectrum. Whether we see and appreciate these colors or not is up to us. The evening offers five approaches to this theme, from political and social, global and intimate-personal viewpoints. And it comes together as a danced declaration of love to the colors in life.

Eight (remake) has been performed at Stadthaus Ulm Germany‍ ‍Supported by Kulturabteilung Stadt Ulm and Stadthaus Ulm Germany Video Valeria Lampadova

Más aire que palabras

A creation of Shared Levitation for the company Andanza Colectivo, Mexico

Choreography Marion Sparber and Alan Fuentes Guerra in collaboration with the dancers

Dancers Mariana Estrada, Fabricio Gutiérrez, Naomi Lúa, Pavel Caro, Miriam Hernández, Daniel Jacuinde, Diana Ávalos.

General direction Eli Solis Ortiz

Artistic direction Jorge Cerecero

Production Fabrizzio Gutierrez Bucio

Music Rob Hayden, Stephane Pigneul and Erikk McKenzie, Winter Family
Duration 20 min

Production created in the frame of Primate Escenico dance festival Xalapa and Festival Internacional Territorio en Movimiento Mexico

Synopsis The piece Más aire que palabras is a philosophical monologue that explores how each person “deals” differently with everyday events, and invites reflection on the extent to which individual well-being often depends not on the situation we find ourselves in, but on our attitude toward what happens around us. Is it a dream, fiction, or reality? Is the mind outside or inside the body?

Más aire que palabras was performed at Primate Escenico / Theatre of Morelia and Festival Territorio en movimiento Mexico

Seelengrund

Our body is the place of our soul, and movement in space is its mirror, an expression of what defines us.

Choreography and performance Marion Sparber and Alan Fuentes Guerra
Music Ana Root, Marina Craffonara & Rina Kaçinari Artistic assistance Birke Schings
Duration 00:28 min
Production IDEA - Tanz Theater Performance (Doris Plankl)
Synopsis In the dance duet, Marion Sparber and Alan Fuentes Guerra plumb the layers of our inner depths, becoming explorers who search with curiosity for our inherent connection with the greater whole.

The dynamic relationship duet thus becomes a reflection, opens up the space, transforms it and makes it tangible as a three-dimensional order of the soul's ground.

The audience is challenged to engage with these dimensions.

Seelengrund has been performed in the following theatres and venues: Portugal Vale de Lama Spain Danza Gunnea Errenteria - Basque Country organized by Haatik Dantza Italy Alps Move Festival.

Support This piece is supported by Amt für Deutsche Kultur Südtirol, Provinz Trentino-Südtirol, the Stiftung Sparkasse Südtirol, the city of Bolzano and produced by IDEA - Tanz Theater Performance.

Photos: Gabriel Höllrigl

Shell Shock

Shell Shock shows four different personalities who share the same room with all their bizarre, funny, or neurotic traits. The pop-art videoprojection adds on the edge, humor and critic in this piece. Unfortunately it deals with the crisis of our century, war, the shell shock state, the trauma, destroyed believes and fairytales. More than ever it is describing a society in need to wake up and it is on the pulse of time.

Choreography Marion Sparber in collaboration with the dancers
Dance Alan Fuentes Guerra, Diane Gemsch, Marion Sparber and Woosang Jeon (original cast and co-creation: Gieorgij Puchalski, Sonia Prado)
Videowork, dramaturgical assistance & filming Projeto Solo (Keren Chernizon)

Shell Shock has been performed in the following theatres and venues: Germany Ulm Moves Festival at Roxy Ulm / Tanzherbst Kempten Italy Alps Move Festival.

Support Amt für Deutsche Kultur Südtirol, Stiftung Sparkasse Südtirol, KARI.TANZHAUS

Photos Blauracke

Equinox

Like the equinox, contrasts are natural. What separates and what connects us, how do we perceive our surroundings through the eyes of our counterpart?

Choreography Marion Sparber in collaboration with the dancers
Dancers Woosang Jeon, Lukas Malkowski, Alan Fuentes Guerra, and Marion Sparber
Music & Costumes Agente Costura
Artistic assistance Birke Schings
Duration 00:50 h
Production IDEA - Tanz Theater Performance (Doris Plankl)
Synopsis Differences and similarities have occupied and fascinated the choreographer for decades. Like the equinox, contrasts are natural. What separates and what connects us, how do we perceive our surroundings through the eyes of our counterpart? The strong physicality becomes the working craft and body poetry of this metaphor of opposites and poles, which carries a deep expressiveness, that is sought in this piece. The spherical sounds and costumes of Agente Costura play with silence and sound, shadow and light using especially built solar panels built by the artist.

Equinox has been performed in the following theatres and venues: Austria Brux – Freies Theater Innsbruck Germany Acker Stadt Palast Italy Alps Move Festival.

Support This piece is supported by Amt für Deutsche Kultur Südtirol, Provinz Trentino-Südtirol, the Stiftung Sparkasse Südtirol, Südtiroler Theaterverband, and produced by IDEA - Tanz Theater Performance.

Radix

The root (radix) is a leafless, usually subterranean part of the plant that is anchored in the soil, absorbs water and nutrient salts and serves as a storage organ. The root network (radix) creates the basis on which life develops, adapts and changes, like a tree that stretches its branches out in the direction where they can develop best. In this way, every plant is based on a complex system in which every tiny part communicates and interacts with each other, weaving a dense network.

Choreography Marion Sparber, Martina Marini and Riccardo Meneghini Performers Marion Sparber, Stefania Bertola, Riccardo Meneghini, Rebecca Dirler, Giulia Tornarolli, Iosu Lezamenta and Alan Fuentes Guerra
Duration 1 h 5 min
Production Tanzkollektiv Südtirol
Synopsis In the dance production Radix, South Tyrolean dancers meet on fertile terrain, stretch their roots into the ground, explore the relationship between their bodies and their behavior towards each other. The dancers and choreographers work together on the concept of collective intelligence in order to understand some key moments of life and evolution. In this choreographic collaboration, the aim is to create a framework that in turn forms part of a larger whole and leads to an interconnected system such as that of society, the internet, the forest, the financial markets, the human brain and the light of each individual star.

Radix has been performed in the following theatres and venues: Italy Alps Move Festival at Stadttheater Gries Bolzano, Puccini Theater Meran, Astra Brixen, Raiffaissensaal Lana and Basis Schlanders (South Tyrol)

Support This piece is supported by Amt für Deutsche Kultur Südtirol, Provinz Trentino-Südtirol, the Stiftung Sparkasse Südtirol, the comunes of Meran and Lana and produced by Tanzkollektiv Südtirol

Photos Gabriel Höllrigl Video Gregor Marini