Sasha Waltz & Guests: Beethoven 7

radialsystem, Berlin
December 5, 2024

A cloud makes its way towards the audience, soon enveloping us in its misty grip. Through the fog are glimpsed figures, human, but wearing strange helmets. The rumbling soundscape is ominous.

So opens Chile-born Diego Noguera’s Freedom/Extasis (Freiheit/Extasis) the first part of Sasha Waltz & Guests’ Beethoven 7 programme. Both Noguera’s work, and Waltz’ own, from which the evening takes its title, touch on a theme relevant throughout history: the tension between personal freedom and constraints imposed by society and government that inevitably mean at least some loss of free will, liberty and self-determination. But the two works could hardly be more different.

Freedom/Extasis has no set, just a bare stage surrounded by black drapes. But as more smoke comes, like volcanic gases emerging through fissures in the Earth, there’s a powerful impression that we are in some hellish alien landscape. ‘In’ because the way the fog encases the audience has the effect of immersing one in the scene. You feel you are part of the onstage world, not just watching it.

In designer Federico Polucci’s masks and stiff, translucent costumes, the dancers look alien too. Their movement is animalistic but broken, cracking and collapsing in response to the soundscape, also by Noguera.

Things slowly ramp up. After a blackout, masks are removed. The performers’ movement is slow. Eyes stare as if dazed. The soundscape, slowly getting louder and more strident, seems to bear down on them, forcing them to the ground as if in submission. A metaphor for the power of society or government or those otherwise in control, perhaps.

Another blackout sees sparks of protest that quickly become angry flames. As they awaken, attempt to break free, rebel, dancers shake, and stomp. Their world is now heavy on aggression. They fight something or someone we cannot see. Largely individual, although with a couple of loose unison moments, it’s a maelstrom of movement and feelings, delivered with incredible energy and intensity. The tension is palpable, the music now so loud, seats vibrate. Normally, I recoil from that sort of volume but, while uncomfortable, here it felt justified.

Sasha Waltz’ own Beethoven 7 could hardly start more differently but thematic links soon emerge.

Waltz originally choreographed two of the movements of the composer’s Seventh Symphony for a site-specific broadcast from amid the ancient ruins of the ancient theatre in Delphi, Greece as part of European broadcaster ARTE’s Through Europe with Beethoven season. Now extended to take in the whole opus, it’s a joyous, sometimes witty but also thoughtful piece that retains a superb sense of space, the choreography complimenting the music perfectly, capturing all its moods and turns.

On a now fog-free, stripped back stage that reveals the beautiful glazed tiles, windows and doors left from radialsystem’s previous life as a pumping station (built in 1881, the main theatre was previously the machine hall), the women appear in designer Bernd Skodzig’s flowing, airy dresses, the men in white vests and pants. They walk, meet, hold hands, embrace. There are a lot of smiling faces. It’s very playful with a lot going on.

The second movement, which sees white dresses and trousers replaced by black skirts, has a darker feel. Everything is more controlled. There’s an inherent sadness as if something has been lost, although the mood does lighten a little as couples and small groups break away.

The final two movements see yet more change. The free-flowing ease of the opening is a distant memory as the dance is now full of straight lines. It speaks of authority. There’s a lot of gesture, arms frequently extended to the side. At one point, a woman appears with an enormous flag made of lightweight, transparent material, that she softly waves over the crowd. The flag has no colouring or symbols, leaving one to put one’s own interpretation on it. The initial thought is that it’s a sign of protest but the way it seems to bear down on the dancers like a heavy weight suggests it’s actually symbolic of power.

Slowly but subtly, things change again. Struggle reveals itself, first through shuddering bodies as if something is boiling up inside, then through more outwardly aggression as the dancers resemble fighters (making one recall Freedom/Extasis). And yet the overall feeling is one of optimism, that protest can bring change for the better.

The whole evening proved a powerful, engaging and thought-provoking experience. It was also one that demonstrated the performers’ versatility and amazing stamina, with the whole ensemble on stage for most of both pieces.

Sasha Waltz & Guests are in London on April 29 & 30, 2025, when they perform In C at the Queen Elizabeth Hall at the Southbank Centre.
Read David Mead’s previous review of In C here.

Postscript: Arts funding in Berlin

Returning to protest and change, during the curtain calls, a number from the audience joined the dancers on stage as a banner was unfurled protesting at cuts in arts and culture funding recently announced by Berlin’s government.

The level of funding for the arts in Germany is remarkable. It’s one reason most cities, large and small, have a professional dance company. Two years ago, Berlin’s government announced that the city’s budget for culture would rise to €947 million, with a promise that it would increase to €1 billion by 2025. Roughly ninety-five percent of that goes to seventy long-term recipients in the form of institutional funding. Now, instead, the city’s Senate has voted to cut funding by over €130 million.

By comparison, that would still leave the amount Berlin provides to arts and culture (and remember, this is Berlin only, not the whole of Germany) in excess of the £640 million (approximately €767 million, roughly seventy-percent to National Portfolio organisations) given by Arts Council England for the whole country.

Affecting all state-owned or state-funded cultural institutions in the city, the impending cuts are clearly going to hit and hit hard. The effects will be felt across the sector, from opera, orchestras, concert halls and dance companies, children’s and youth theatre, performing arts schools, to libraries and museums. It seems likely the impact will be most heavily felt among smaller institutions, Some detail is already available with some recipients, in expectation of losing half their funding or more, already voicing fears of closure.

Undeniable is that money is tight. The city’s annual budget has grown crazily since the pandemic, and now stands at close to €40 billion. But for a city that makes so much of its theatre and cultural scene, using it to attract tourists and thus create jobs in all sorts of other sectors, such large cuts do seem like shooting oneself in the foot.

Where things will end, who knows. If there are to be cuts, many will argue that the arts should not be exempt from taking a share of the pain. But there is already quite a backlash and signs that people are backtracking. Even Joe Chialo, Berlin’s culture senator, has observed that the cuts are “very drastic and brutal,” and has promised to find a way to rethink the plan. We will see.