With Speak for Yourself by Sol León/Paul Lightfoot and Emergence by Crystal Pite, this acclaimed double evening presents two exceptionally fascinating choreographies. Sol León and Paul Lightfoot were dancers in the venerable Nederlands Dans Theater, which they now direct themselves and whose repertoire they have shaped significantly – they have conceived more than 50 ballets specifically for the ensemble. The two choreographers entrust only a few of their works to external companies. Duality is the major theme of Speak for Yourself, which was created in 1999. The smoke that rises from the back of a dancer spreads across the entire stage and is only displaced in the second part of the piece by a very fine drizzle. To music by Johann Sebastian Bach and Steve Reich, an alchemistic dance experiment unfurls during which there are magical encounters not only between fire and water, but also chaos and stillness.

Zurich Ballet worked with the choreographer Crystal Pite for the first time in early 2018. As one of the few women in this highly sensitive terrain, the charismatic Canadian has asserted herself on the international stage, creating choreographies not only for her own Kidd Pivot ensemble based in Vancouver, but also for the world’s most renowned ballet companies. In Emergence, created in 2009 for the National Ballet of Canada, she explores the question of whether there is an equivalent in nature for the hierarchical structure of a classical ballet company. The dancers are fascinatingly portrayed as a bee-like collective body, and explore the structures that arise from the diversity of their interactions as dancers. To the hypnotic strains of sound artist Owen Belton, we also experience a vision of democracy in the rigidly structured world of a dance company.