Shaw: A Simple Piece

Perpetually moving amidst the dancers on meticulously mapped out paths, a filmmaker focuses sometimes on solos, sometimes on group structures. As if out of nowhere, double the number of dancers filling the stage only to disappear at the next shot, moving with the greatest of ease between illusion and reality. In an electrifying 30-minute choreography for sixteen dancers, Deutsche Oper am Rhein’s new ballet director Demis Volpi created A simple piece to the highly inventive vocal composition ‘Partita for 8 voices’ by the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Caroline Shaw. Shot by filmmaker Ralph Goertz in a single take, the camera - and the viewer - magically become part of the ensemble on stage.