European Companies

“Dream Team” (“Jardi Tancat”/“The Blue Brides”/“Lickety-Split”/“High Moon”)
Gauthier Dance Juniors
Theaterhaus Stuttgart
Stuttgart, Germany
March 15, 2025

by Ilona Landgraf
Copyright © 2025 by Ilona Landgraf

Is it the laid-back, feel-good attitude of Eric Gauthier, director and choreographer of Gauthier Dance, that makes his company’s performances feel like family gatherings? A sense of family also unites his junior company, which was founded in 2022 and comprises six dancers (three men and three women) from Australia, Canada, France, Italy, Spain, and Taiwan. Their latest mixed bill, Dream Team, premiered in January. It includes two podcasts that fill the breaks the performers take to change costumes. In them, Gauthier chats with his juniors and the choreographers. When talking about their group spirit, the young dancers call Gauthier their boss whereas Gauthier seems like a proud daddy.

The original title of the program (Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue—quoting a traditional English wedding rhyme that details what a bride should wear for good luck) referred to the selection of pieces.
The old piece was Nacho Duato’s Jardí Tancat (Catalan for “Closed Garden”), created for Nederlands Dans Theater’s junior company, NDT II, in 1983. High Moon by the Canadian choreographer Virginie Brunelle is a world premiere. The borrowed piece is Alejandro Cerrudo’s Lickety-Split, which premiered with the main company, Gauthier Dance, in 2011. The fourth piece, Barak Marshall’s The Blue Brides (also a world premiere), featured weddings, but the blue (a symbol of purity and fidelity) didn’t bring luck. Each piece employed all six dancers.
In Jardí Tancat, they knelt in one corner of a barren square as if worshiping the earth, then jumped up, raised their arms, and dropped onto their knees again. When everyone gathered at the wooden stakes that enclosed the square, looking toward the land beyond, Maria del Mar Bonet’s unpretentious Catalan songs (taken from her album Jardí Tancat) broke the silence. The melancholy of her voice expressed the hardship of country life. Doubled over, the women (wearing wide, ankle-length skirts and tops in earth tones) sowed seeds in a line, holding their lower backs as if in pain. Their hands gently tapped the ground or covered their faces when they burst into tears. Deep plies grounded everyone. Although rural life was taxing, all three couples moved with a dynamic flow.
One couple sailed through a fluent pas de deux until the woman got worked up. Her partner calmed her. The relationship of another couple had rough edges, but the woman still sought solace by throwing herself at her partner’s chest. The third couple was the most outgoing, filling the space like birds eager to fly. As the light faded, all dancers hunkered down again, their heads swaying sideways like reptiles.

The three brides waited in vain for their grooms in the opening scene of The Blue Brides. Only the stridulations of crickets accompanied them. When meeting the men in the next scene, their arms cut into the air piecemeal. Dance theater-like lectures, given at bizarre standing desks, subsequently revealed the fate of each bride. One desktop was nailed to Rebecca Amoroso’s red pumps. She lay on her back, her legs stretched up. Another was mounted like a tray onto Mathilde Roberge’s head who sat on a footstool strapped to her bottom. In the first lecture, Atticus Dobbie talked about Julia (Mathilde Roberge) who did everything right but never had any friends and who no one smiled at. During Dobbie’s speech, Julia shot her grooms (like Bluebeard his wives) who miraculously recovered only to be shot again.
Annabelle (Garance Goutard-Dekeyser), the second bride, was beautiful and consequently harassed. Perhaps it was due to her mother’s death that everything went awry in the life of Stella (Rebecca Amoroso), the third bride. Regardless, she stuck to her life motto (“It’s ok, the sun will shine”) even as smoke billowed out her wedding dress. Between the lectures, a strong solo testified to the self-reflective character of Julia, bells accompanied the men as they plowed through the darkness, and the couples danced to fast forward, tube-heavy folk music. Despite the women’s aversion, the men carried them off stage on their shoulders like bundles afterward. All the screwed-up wedding plans seemed to be history in the final get-together in which a hip song about Istanbul, New York, and Amsterdam indicated that love matters had turned global.

Contrary to its title, Lickety-Split wasn’t as fast as lightning but was poetic. It opened with a solemn in-between of taiji and mime at the front stage, followed by an intimate and, later, stormy pas de deux. Clever warm lighting enhanced the choreography’s appeal. Simple costumes (gray strap dresses, gray pants, and dark tops) didn’t cry for attention. Some scenes highlighted togetherness; others focused on individuals. Rong Chang closed his witty solo (which won him extra applause) in an almost knocked-out state, pretending that a gong hit his head. Goutard-Dekeyser looked around for support when faced with the kneeling Dobbie. With no help in sight, she pressed something invisible from her fingers and dropped it into his begging hand.
The warmth, wit, and cheekiness of Lickety-Split were like food for the soul.

That couldn’t be said about High Moon. Its dancers assembled into a human statue in the rear of the stage. Above them, a glaring flood light blinded the eyes. As they teetered forward, their hands flicked as if to shake off drops of water. The music’s electronic pulses (composed by Laurier Rajotte) reverberated in the dancers’ bodies and perhaps caused their angst-ridden panting. As an oboe played the signature melody of Ravel’s Boléro, it was clear that Bejárt’s eponymous choreography inspired High Moon. Yet it didn’t play in the same league. Wearing black shorts and gray jackets (alluringly lowered at times to reveal naked shoulders), the dancers resembled a wannabe cool gang that wavered between aggression and feebleness.
They scampered like swans but with chicken-like bent arms. Fists pushed vigorously upward, but in no time, the arms faltered and crossed in front of chests like floppy fronds. The seesawing steps characteristic of Boléro turned into a more athletic jogging, hopping, or fidgeting. Languid, lascivious lunges and suggestively swinging hips recalled Boléro’s sensuality, but High Moon had no climactic finale. Instead, the music crescendoed, and the dancers clustered at the front stage like chosen ones, their gazes directed upward.