Der Tod und das Mädchen

In the organizer's words:

Dance world premiere by Eyal Dadon and Andonis Foniadakis
With music by Franz Schubert (Gustav Mahler version), John Adams and Gil Yaacov Nemet

Death and the Maiden | The Death and the Maiden | Ο θάνατος και το κορίτσι

by Andonis Foniadakis

and

Shuv | שוב | Eternity

by Eyal Dadon

With the Kassel State Orchestra

In the famous Andante of his D minor string quartet, Schubert composes an icy death based on the text by Matthias Claudius and depicts it with gloomy minor chords - but this death also turns out to be a friend, a savior, and places the work in a field of tension between life and death, youthfulness and transience, and provides a final balm for the soul despite the dismaying proximity to death. In the double dance evening Death and the Maiden, by the Greek Andonis Foniadakis and the Israeli Eyal Dadon, death is not the end in the finite cycle of life, but part of the incessant dance that allows life to emerge again and again. A successful life is the willingness to "let go", to "leave behind", to say goodbye - behind this lies the inscription on the Temple of Delphi: "Know thyself", as the confrontation with one's own personality. Death and the Maiden is perhaps only marginally about the world after death, but very much about the last things and how we deal with them - man as a traveler, as homo viator, a way-walker, a pilgrim on his way to a distant destination. Life means change and wandering: transmigration of the soul and soul's journey.

"Death:

Give your hand, you beautiful and delicate creature!

I am a friend, and do not come to punish:

Be of good cheer! I am not wild,

Shall sleep gently in my arms."

Matthias Claudius

Dancers and co-creators Death and the Maiden: Anna Gorokhova / Anna Vandorpe, Myles L. Hunter, Terra Kell (guest) / Kiley Dolaway, Kesi Rose Olley Dorey, Tse-Wei Wu / Lino Eckenstein, James Potter / Alessio Marchini

Dancers and co-creators Shuv: Shafiki Sseggayi, Klil Ela Rotshtain, Matthias Vaucher, Selene Martello, Sophie Borney, Ekaterina Cheporova / Ann Barak, Daniel Gur / Stavros Alexandros Papadakis