SZENE
Salzburg

With The show must go on in the year 2000 the French choreographer Jérôme Bel rewrote the history of contemporary dance and performance. His selection of music – hits from over thirty years of pop history – is familiar to the audience. However, this performance takes the songs literally at their word, turning them into witty, ironic, playful and radical little stories, each with their very own kind of poetry. To mark its 50th anniversary in the autumn of 2019, SZENE restaged this cult production using local talent. The Salzburg version cast twenty professional and amateur performers: people from a variety of backgrounds and with a variety of ages, who were a reflection of the Salzburg audience. After a euphoric reception, there is now one more chance to see the performance at PNEU 2020.

Ever since the mid-1990s, Jérôme Bel has been regarded as a key artist on the international performance scene. His earliest works already used the shifts of context and levels of meaning for which he is renowned and he became credited as one of the initiators of “conceptual choreography”. His works are now regarded as classics and Bel is seen as a master of his art. In recent months he has attracted considerable attention for his principled refusal to use air travel, which has brought about a change of thinking in many choreographic circles.

Concept & Direction: Jérôme Bel
With: Silvia Amberger, Nayana Keshava Bhat, Prunelle Bry, Claudia Danler, Samuli Emery, Erna Fleischer, Valentin Flucher, Ariel Hayoun, Lothar Held, Bashir Khordahji, Mert Kocadayi, Mochepp Kouhnaward, Clara Kirchgatterer, Arnold Niederhuber, Eva Schaller, Bernhard Schmidhuber, Balthazar Sibieude, Erwin Slavetinsky, Peter Tinta, Ulli Ullmann, Sonja Zobel
Production Salzburg Version: Dina Ed Dik
Produced by Théâtre de la Ville Paris, Gasthuis Amsterdam, Centre Choregraphique National Montpellier Languedoc-Roussillon, Arteleku Gipuzkoako Foru Aldundia San Sebastian, R.B. Paris
Artistic Assistance & Management: Rebecca Lee
Produktionsmanagement: Sandro Grando R.B
Jérôme Bel is supported by Direction régionale des affaires culturelles d‘Ile-de-France, République française Ministère de la Culture, Institut Français and République française Ministère de l'Europe et des Affaires étrangères

• jeromebel.fr