In his new choreography, Cayetano Soto is inspired by „Fuel“, a piece for string orchestra by the American composer Julia Wolfe who transforms the modern industrial world of fuels and machines into clanking string sounds. Soto transfers to human bodies, five women and four men, this idea of a single substance that keeps the world moving restlessly: as if the dancers, too, were driven by one predominant energy. This energy is not only revealed by the striking music but also by Soto’s particular use of the lighting, which in this piece even serves as the main element of the stage design: bright white light emanates from a pile of lamps, dazzling the dancers as well as the audience. This lighting contributes to create a strange contrast between the full speed human commitment and the coldness of a machine-driven alienated mechanical world. However, the interaction of dance, lighting, and costumes – the women’s light and refined dresses in apricot colour and the men’s long black fluent trousers – produce an impression of superior elegance within an explosive world of untamed power.
The choreography works with dynamic Pas de Deux and Trios and very few still but never strainless moments. Soto’s dance is built upon a classical basis. The dancers’ upper bodies, mostly static in classical ballet, are carrying out motions reminding of electrical oscillations. Particularly the Pas de Deux are technically very demanding and require the dancers to give their all, as they command fast and unusual, sometimes almost acrobatic movements and many complicated lifts.
Right before the ending all nine dancers appear, intensifying their dancing together with the crescendo of the music. Finally one female dancer is standing alone while three men disappear in an apparent slowdown moving their backs like waves. Yet she is unable to achieve any rest, instead performing little, nervous, jerky movements as if she was being recharged while waiting for the next crash. When one male dancer approaches her quickly, everything could rebegin – blackout!
Nadja Kadel

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