BALLETT AM RHEIN

From Germany comes one of the world’s largest ballet companies, the Ballett am Rhein Düsseldorf Duisburg. Co-directed since the summer of 2024 by Raphaël Coumes-Marquet, ballet director, and Bridget Breiner, chief choreographer, the company presents in Bilbao a triple program titled “Drei Meister – Drei Werke” (Three Masters – Three Works, in English), which, as the name suggests, offers three pieces by internationally renowned choreographers.

The first choreography is *Rubies* by George Balanchine, which embodies the essence of this blood-red gemstone. Dancers energetically navigate the stage to the rhythm of Stravinsky’s Capriccio for piano and orchestra. Balanchine skillfully combines complex jumps and pointe work with jazz movements reminiscent of those seen on Broadway stages. The scarlet kaleidoscope images celebrate the energetic power of dance.

The second piece is Fugitive Visions, created by Hans van Manen in 1990 using Sergei Prokofiev’s eponymous music as its basis. Full of harmony and dynamism, surprising and captivating, movements and music blend into the ephemeral and appealing art of dance. A choreography that moves and inspires, making no gender distinctions and allowing us to forget the world around us for a moment.

Finally, the evening culminates with the work of William Forsythe, Enemy in the Figure, which moves between frenetic and calm, dark and mysterious, to the pulsating rhythm of the music. Light, an integral part of the choreography as well as the dance movements themselves, causes the space to expand or contract, prompts dancers to emerge from darkness, and develops an irresistible attraction. At the center of this exploration of light and darkness is the individual. This work, with its urgency and radical aesthetic, has lost none of its modernity.