DANCE SERIES II: DAPHNIS ET CHLOÉ

The Zukunft@BPhil Dance Series - Part II

The Zukunft@BPhil Dance Series - Part II

RAVEL’S 'DAPHNIS ET CHLOÉ'
Berliner Philharmoniker, Sir Simon Rattle

In encompassing members of about 190 nations and more languages than Babel, Berlin is the most cosmopolitan of German cities and has the Philharmonic Hall at its heart.

Owing to this music project centred on schools, more of its youngsters get to know each other through dancing and experience a little of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra’s repertoire. Most of them come from various parts of the city and have never been onstage before.

This evening’s choreography was revised by Royston Maldoom, Susannah Broughton, Volker Eisenbach and Anja Müller in the course of an intensive workshop then was rehearsed in schools and in the Arena in Treptow.

The costumes were designed by students in Florence von Gerkan’s costume class at the University of Arts, in whose workshops they were then manufactured, so the staging of ‘DAPHNIS ET CHLOÉ’ was the climax of more than half a year of broad cooperation. School administrators and staff were unusually supportive, and secondary school teachers and the above students took part in a general workshop about costume-making. This involved many palavers, changes of school schedules and the creation, rejection and choice of costume designs, whose onstage effect was then enhanced by apt lighting and acoustics.

The preparation of the choreography of ‘DAPHNIS ET CHLOÉ’ under Royston Maldoom involved more than 200 disparate youngsters for five weeks. They grew together into a family whose culminating achievements were joint performances with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under Sir Simon Rattle. Both performances were sold out, applauded enthusiastically by 6,000 viewers and recorded as a swift and grandiose blend of music and dancing by 12 cameras.