Passion.

Passion is a three piece dance programme by Örjan Andersson, Kenneth Kvarnström and Stijn Celis.

In 2011, choreographer Örjan Andersson won the Svenska Dagbladet Opera Award for, among other works, his Beethoven’s 32 variations, created for The Göteborg Ballet. Quoting the jury: “With musical integrity, he allows the dancers of the Göteborg Opera to chisel out free voices for Beethoven’s piano variations - sensitively and poignantly.”

Beethoven wanted to dedicate his heroic symphony to Napoleon, but when he named himself Emperor Beethoven believed that he had distanced himself from his earlier high humanistic ideals. Beethoven himself was the subject of intense worship after his death. He was one of the first free artists and – due to increasing deafness – surrounded by increasing silence. Instead he listened to his inner self, to the musical creativity of his soul. Like a theme with many variations, Beethoven has been interpreted in many different ways. His music is now interpreted afresh through the work of Örjan Andersson’s contemporary choreography.

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Beethoven's 32 variations

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Four originators, five dancers, all must have trust, both in the fall and in the lift. They are components in a musical motor that was once invented by a Frenchman fascinated by mechanics, Maurice Ravel. His Boléro beats somewhere in the background of Rintamäki´s sound picture, whose volume just grows, interrupted by a wedge, or rather a gleam, of bell sounds. The costumes, set design and light quote the rhythmic core motif – in graphic shapes on a reflector, in a collar’s creases and folds, garments that can take the shape of a bolero, a magical flower, or more industrial: cogwheels.

Unfolding, increasing, folding, a growing volume alongside a rhythm where bodies are united in a motoric musicality, both monumental and divinely light.
OreloB was created for The Göteborg Ballet in 2008

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Nick Caves’ music plays a central part in Your Passion is Pure Joy to Me. In the same way as the singer asks himself in his texts just how it is possible to live with painful memories, Stijn Celis has seven colourful dancers, moving with an obstinate expression, exploring the possibility of finding hope and consolation after traumatic experiences.

Words as impressionistic and intimate have been used to describe this choreography, created for The Göteborg Ballet.

In our time there is probably no rock star that has grappled quite as much with the question of trust and consolation as the Australian singer and guitarist Nick Cave. His songs consistently revolve around the question of whether or not consolation is possible after one has lived through and survived the most diverse catastrophes, from the great worldwide ones to those that are highly personal and private.

With Nick Cave the question of faith is not so much a question of the existence of God. In his songs it is much more a matter of how one can live with one’s memories without being broken, of how, in spite of all the heavy memories, one is able to recreate and retrieve a belief in life.

/ Armin Kerber, dramaturgist for Stijn Celis Your Passion is Pure Joy to Me.

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Your Passion is Pure Joy to Me

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