Staatsoper Unter den Linden, Berlin
July 13, 2025
Gods and Dogs was the one-hundredth work by Jiří Kylián, originally made in 2008 for Nederlands Dans Theater. It was inspired by thinking about the two poles of humankind: the animalistic and the spiritual. According to the choreographer, the two aspects belong to every human and it is intrinsic to the individual to find a balance between the them.
The Staatsballett Berlin dancers were beautifully precise and neat in all the complex combinations, the movement looking fresh and innovative despite the age of the piece. The intersections and interactions between the eight dancers (Rafaelle Queiroz, Anthony Mette, Polina Semionova, Giovanni Prinzip, Emma Antrobus, Loïck Pireaux, Mairi Maeda and Olmo Verbeeck Martinez) were of rare beauty. Excellent in their execution, they were fluid, smooth and delicate yet also passionate. All performed with zest and audacity.
Photo Yan Revazov
The stage, designed by the choreographer, is wonderful in its simplicity. A shiny yet sober curtain is at times still but elsewhere moves to create a gentle wavy spark. The dancers go through it as if it is a passage between two worlds. Maybe a gateway to transformation.
Above the stage a video shows an unknown animal, similar to a wolf, walking slowly towards the audience. While appealing in itself, it does distract from the dancers’ performance though, and requires some deliberate effort not to look at it with too much attention.
Beautiful is the simplicity of the costumes by Joke Visser which make visible the performers’ strong, flexible, sculpted and slim bodies. The concept for the music is also by Kylián, It includes Dirk Haubrich and Beethoven scores, and is a juxtaposition between something strident and something harmonic.
Photo Serghei Gherciu
Crystal Pite’s Angels’ Atlas is inspired by the mystery of the cosmos, to which the choreographer had become familiar with as a child thanks to stories she heard from her father and uncle. The work is wonderfully scenographic, particularly the smoky and ghostly lights projected in the back of the stage. The set design and lighting, important factors in the performance, are by Jay Gower Taylor and Tom Visser respectively.
Gracious duets and fascinating group motions contribute to the elegance of the ballet. At various times, the dancers’ hands throb in front of their chests and their heads, maybe as a way to show emotional dismay and psychological distress. It seems as they are compulsive motions, a visual embodiment of something that somehow need to be released. In a way, an expressions of the body speaking its own language.
Death is again portrayed in explicit ways followed by the arrival of angels, protectors, rescuers and shepherds. It is almost impossible not to make and see associations with current events in some parts of the world. Human angels are helping and trying to stop humanitarian crimes with all their might, both locally and from afar, to fight for justice and peace, to take action that can help those in need, and to send out messages of disapproval where necessary. Pite’s choreography does the same in its own way.
During the performance, seeing all the beautiful bodies dancing with such dedication, delicacy, beauty and gracefulness I couldn’t help but return to Footnote to Howl, the poem by Allen Ginsberg, so brilliantly recited a few days before by Patti Smith during her concert in Berlin. I was moved and inspired by the poem and Smith’s fervent activism, and saw connections with the two works danced by the Staatsballett and what they depict: a sort of competing vision to one of destruction and that there is a holiness in humankind that offers hope of salvation.