SLEEPWALKING BALLAD, a piece by Symbolic Movement Choir, celebrated its premiere on 9 October 2025 at the Pfefferberg Theater.
Verse for verse, circle for circle, interruption for interruption.
The group, dressed completely in black and wearing black scarves on their heads, moves across the small stage of the Pfefferberg Theater. In contrast to the sparsely designed stage, the performance is marked by profuse movement sequences – movements as distinguished as the verses of a poem. Which makes sense since the piece is based on the surreal poem “Romance sonámbulo” by Federico García Lorca – a poem about love and pain.
Verse for verse, the interplay between love and pain is set in motion. During the first verse, we see how the group moves, how it holds, pulls, and supports itself. Arms and bodies circle. But the movements are constantly interrupted. The dancers wind themselves around until their bodies revolt. Limbs appear to shoot off and break away from bodies. The circular movements continue, arms outstretched. Gentle movements until the breaking point. Tenderness versus harshness, harshness versus tenderness.
The performance never finds its flow. Rather, it demonstrates how difficult it is during these times of crisis and war to remain in flow. The performance is divided into a moment of revolt and the attempt to resist or surrender and be repressed.
This battle between tenderness and harshness becomes particularly clear in a pas de deux. The dancers roll gently on the floor, swirl their bodies around, and support one another’s movements. But even this interaction is consistently interrupted as they shove each other or push one another to the ground. Even the typical ballet lift ends with an abrupt separation rather than with the dancer being softly lowered to the ground. Modern dance is skillfully entwined with fragments of classical ballet. Ease dissolves into heaviness. The everyday, inner and often hidden struggle with living life and dealing with current crises or even just facing them becomes evident in this performance.
There is no respite from this struggle.
In the end, the dancers stand exhausted on the stage. Blindfolded and with the help of a scale – like Justice – they attempt to determine how much a human life is worth. At the same time, a dancer arranges golden ammunition on the floor. An attempt to find order in the chaos? Another dancer swings an axe at a tree stump. Hacking at something long dead. Hacking at nature and the vulnerable.
However, unlike Justice, they are forced to look – with empathy and human understanding – and face these questions and struggles.
English translation by Melissa Maldonado
SLEEPWALKING BALLAD by Symbolic Movement Choir, celebrated its premiere on 9 October 2025 at the Pfefferberg Theater.
