A TANZFONDS ERBE project

All in black, a group of mourners enters the snow-white stage. Miraculous, mythical creatures join them, a swarm of birds, the Egyptian guard of the dead Anubis, a tap dancer and a ballerina in pointe shoes. Events are slow, quiet, highly concentrated; they are characterized by bizarre figures, elements of the absurd, grotesque and humour.

»Zwei Giraffen tanzen Tango« (»Two giraffes are dancing tango«) is the name of a piece by Gerhard Bohner (1936-92). He created it in 1980 with the Bremer Tanztheater; he had taken over the artistic direction, together with Reinhild Hoffmann, in 1978. Gerhard Bohner unified choreography, visual arts and contemporary music and embodies an important stage in German dance history. In 1998, euro-scene Leipzig showed his solo »Im (Goldenen) Schnitt I« (»In the (golden) ratio I«) with Cesc Gelabert from Barcelona as the festival’s opening night.

Helge Letonja was born in Leoben / Austria in 1970. He completed his dance education in Frankfurt/M., Amsterdam and New York, and was a dancer at the Tanztheater Bremen for Susanne Linke. In 1996, he founded steptext dance project. 36 years after the world première of »Zwei Giraffen tanzen Tango«, he reconstructed numerous sequences; at the same time, he opens up new associative spaces.