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HEPTA - acoustic movement concert	Traces Dance theater ellaH with a courageous experiment between new music and contemporary dance In the luciously brown bark mulch, three dancers are cowering, small and strong, they lay on the floor of the stage. Nearby, componist and musician Aristides Strongylis strokes a tone on his piano. The sound stands in the space and nothing happens. Strongylis balances the piano fixated on wheels over the ankle-deep mulch onto the stage. He begins with his piano piece “The seven open chakras of Dionysos”. This time, the dancers react. Drawn by the music, they crawl over the floor, until they reach the origin of the music, the composer at the piano. Meet-up between new music and contemporary dance The premiere of “Hepta”, an ‘acoustic movement concert’ in the Theatrale Halle, is an experiment in which new music and contemporary dance meet live on stage. Annett Paschke, choreographer of the play, expands on this interactive coproduction between the dance theater ellaH and the composer Aristides Strongylis: “Back then, we did even more classical dancing. With our last play ‘Kategorie F29’ we tried out a very theatrical form, this time, our work is more performative.” Normally, in the dance theater, the rhythm of the music also makes the rhythm of the scene-play. For Hepta, it is different. Here, the composer and the dancers act as egal partners that influence one another. For the composer is truly not invulnerable. In fact, he is in a constant exchange with the dancers. Mostly, they follow to his music. But sometimes, they force the musician to changes. The roles even get inversed. Then Stongylis steps down from his heightened piano stool and follows the violin music of Ada Schaff.	Bastian Buchtaleck	May 2011
Category F_29	Words are failing The dance theater ellaH from Halle and the freie theater nordlichten from Hildesheim have gotten together to discover with scenic means, what this blurry, medical term, in fact circumscripts. Therefore, they have talked to patients, have collected recounts of experiences, that concern the side-effects of antipsychotic drugs, of attempts of therapies in psychiatric clinics and of throbbing feelings of estrangement [...] But there is another level, a project to undergo the world of words, to find an expression for that, which cannot be said. For while the five performers wear shirts that are knot together like straight-jackets in the back, they do move in painful choreographies to the at times desperate, at times euphoric music of Hannes Scheffler. The team of directors Annett Paschke and Matthias Spaniel find corporeal images for states of minds. The dance positions initially stay in the domain of well-known body expressions, but grow in the course of the one-hour play to always more impressive displays of desperation. While a regular stream of thin black plastic flakes is falling on the scene of the theo, the feeling of vulnerability thickens [...] This dance theater cannot force tangible knowledge out of the phenomenon of mental illnesses, but creates deep, striking moments of expressivity. Maybe this play wants exactly that: grant a reference to the unavailibilty of the sick. Words are failing, solace also lacks. But there is movement, music, that carries one away, that creates a hold for a few moments, and a connection. The prisoners cannot be liberated. But we are moved.	André Mumot	Hildesheimer Allgemeine Zeitung, 02.11.09

Traces

Dance theater ellaH with a courageous experiment between new music and contemporary dance

In the luciously brown bark mulch, three dancers are cowering, small and strong, they lay on the floor of the stage. Nearby, componist and musician Aristides Strongylis strokes a tone on his piano. The sound stands in the space and nothing happens. Strongylis balances the piano fixated on wheels over the ankle-deep mulch onto the stage. He begins with his piano piece “The seven open chakras of Dionysos”. This time, the dancers react. Drawn by the music, they crawl over the floor, until they reach the origin of the music, the composer at the piano.

Meet-up between new music and contemporary dance
The premiere of “Hepta”, an ‘acoustic movement concert’ in the Theatrale Halle, is an experiment in which new music and contemporary dance meet live on stage. Annett Paschke, choreographer of the play, expands on this interactive coproduction between the dance theater ellaH and the composer Aristides Strongylis: “Back then, we did even more classical dancing. With our last play ‘Kategorie F29’ we tried out a very theatrical form, this time, our work is more performative.”
Normally, in the dance theater, the rhythm of the music also makes the rhythm of the scene-play. For Hepta, it is different. Here, the composer and the dancers act as egal partners that influence one another. For the composer is truly not invulnerable. In fact, he is in a constant exchange with the dancers. Mostly, they follow to his music. But sometimes, they force the musician to changes. The roles even get inversed. Then Stongylis steps down from his heightened piano stool and follows the violin music of Ada Schaff.

Bastian Buchtaleck

May 2011

Category F_29

Words are failing

The dance theater ellaH from Halle and the freie theater nordlichten from Hildesheim have gotten together to discover with scenic means, what this blurry, medical term, in fact circumscripts. Therefore, they have talked to patients, have collected recounts of experiences, that concern the side-effects of antipsychotic drugs, of attempts of therapies in psychiatric clinics and of throbbing feelings of estrangement [...]
But there is another level, a project to undergo the world of words, to find an expression for that, which cannot be said. For while the five performers wear shirts that are knot together like straight-jackets in the back, they do move in painful choreographies to the at times desperate, at times euphoric music of Hannes Scheffler. The team of directors Annett Paschke and Matthias Spaniel find corporeal images for states of minds. The dance positions initially stay in the domain of well-known body expressions, but grow in the course of the one-hour play to always more impressive displays of desperation. While a regular stream of thin black plastic flakes is falling on the scene of the theo, the feeling of vulnerability thickens [...]
This dance theater cannot force tangible knowledge out of the phenomenon of mental illnesses, but creates deep, striking moments of expressivity. Maybe this play wants exactly that: grant a reference to the unavailibilty of the sick. Words are failing, solace also lacks. But there is movement, music, that carries one away, that creates a hold for a few moments, and a connection. The prisoners cannot be liberated. But we are moved.

André Mumot

Hildesheimer Allgemeine Zeitung, 02.11.09