PROJECTS

Ballet by Gerhard Bohner to music by Gerald Humel

The premiere of Gerhard Bohner’s choreography Die Folterungen der Beatrice Cenci (The Tortures of Beatrice Cenci) took place on 16 April 1971 at the Akademie der Künste (Academy of Arts) in Berlin. It caused uproar among critics and the public alike and made Bohner famous overnight. The subject of the piece is the bloodthirsty tale of the Roman patrician Beatrice Cenci (1577–1599) who, having being seriously abused by her father, murdered him and was later tortured as punishment.

With its realistic portrayal of torture, the choreography not only reflects the expressionist tradition of someone like Kurt Jooss but also continues the expressive, narrative, classical-based style introduced by Tatjana Gsovsky. The piece also shows how emerging German dance theatre was influenced by Antonin Artaud’s Theatre of Cruelty as well as by the ideas of Jerzy Grotowski and the work of the Living Theatre.

Saarländisches Staatstheater’s ballet company brought Bohner’s signature piece back to the stage in May 2017 when it was performed for the first time in 25 years. The reconstruction was led by the choreologist Cherie Trevaskis using he notation she produced when the work was being rehearsed under Bohner’s direction at the Bavarian State Ballet in 1989/1990; it was also produced here under Bohner in 1972. Ivan Liška and Colleen Scott, who danced the lead roles in the 1973 Düsseldorf production, supported Trevaskis in her work.

The Saarländisches Staatstheater is showing the reconstruction as part of a double-bill evening with Stijn Celis’s latest work Pulcinella offering a cheerful contrast to Bohner’s bleak choreography.