tanzmainz / Sharon Eyal: Soul Chain

Inspired by strong feelings of love, Soul Chain combines ballet and electro into an exciting contemporary dance performance. The ensemble becomes a swarm full of energy in an extremely challenging choreography that won the German Theatre Prize DER FAUST in 2018. 

Even though Sharon Eyal says Soul Chain is a play about love and longing, you should not expect too much romance. Rather, the movements are animalistic and pure, a steaming group that moves with the highest discipline in rhythmic unison. The longer this unity lasts, the more time we have to search for the differences. As the choreographer says, in similarities one can detect how different we are. So here, in the contrast between the group and the individual, she expresses her love for the absolute uniqueness of each individual. 

Eyal about Soul Chain: “We all find an intense loneliness inside us confronted with the love of life, this huge passion, which is not always present in our feelings. We have to accept this inherent loneliness. We all live our own lives, and everyone is quite alone when it ends. There are big emotions within the bodies. I believe they do not require a story; their immediacy manifests itself much more directly through the bodies and muscles.”

Soul Chain is a creation about desire. You see the pain, the sweat, how the inner being is trying to find its way to the outside. This need is growing more and more while the bodies are slowly becoming exhausted. It`s about love, about the love for the other, for oneself, for the space that surrounds you, the love for everything. Love is like tissue. 

Tanzmainz is a contemporary dance ensemble of the StaatstheaterMainz directed by Honne Dohrmann since 2014. Twenty-one dancers work side by side with a diverse production team to create three to five world premieres per season. The ensemble’s working method is characterized by openness, mutual respect and high motivation. 

Israeli choreographer Sharon Eyal danced with the Batsheva Dance Company between 1990- 2008 and started choreographing in 2005. During her time with the Batsheva Dance Company, she created 16 new works. In 2013, Eyal launched L-E-V, a company for which she created six choreographies. In 2018, Cankarjev dom hosted her show Love Chapter 2.

Length: 55 minutes, without interval