World premiere at Schauspiel Stuttgart, Germany - May 2022
Dance
The piece REFLECTION.S offers a retrospective of Stuttgart Ballet’s Principal soloist and choreographer Roman Novitzky on his experiences as a professional dancer looking back at his 20-years career on stage before retiring from performance.
The opening scene situates us in a dance studio with ballet barres in what seems at first glance as usual morning ballet class. Behind a wall made of gauze, dancers lit in saturated coloured light function as mirrored reflections of the dancers in front. These ‘reflections’ break away from the illusion, and begin to move separately as if reflecting memories or moments that the studio-mirrors absorbed.
Later, the studio space transforms into more suggestive and sculptural setting, where lighting and moving stainless steel mirror-boards metamorphose the space, using light-patterns and reflections, silhouettes and illusionary depths at the horizon.
The end of the journey closes a circle with the protagonist who now connect to the distorted-mirror at the back of the stage before descending to the floor.