Eidos / Tao

The essence and inner beauty of a form is to be found in its reduction. In a dialogue with four Chinese dancers, the Rubato dance company explores this thesis of choreographer Gerhard Bohner.

In his seminal solo works, Gerhard Bohner, the dancer, explored abstract forms of beauty and their relationship to the dancing body. Proceeding from the last video documents that Gerhard Bohner made before he died in 1992, Dieter Baumann borrows from this artistic legacy to enter into a dialogue on the concepts of beauty and memory. The present performance, staged in co-operation with dancers from the Jin Xing Dance Company, focuses on the intercultural significance of these concepts in a three-phase translation process. The dancers communicate on stage with a video that shows Dieter Baumann working with Gerhard Bohner's video material.

Eidos is a concept of central importance to European philosophy: eidos (Greek for "appearance, figure, beauty") refers to a) figure, form, appearance, b) the idea in Plato’s philosophy, c) the opposite of matter for Aristotle, d) the species as opposed to the genus in logic, e) essence in Edmund Husserl.

Tao Tao, literally “path” In Chinese philosophy it means a basic, all-pervasive principle of movement or a process that creates everything and, like a law of nature, lends order to all processes in the cosmos.

Choreography, Costumes, Video: Jutta Hell, Dieter Baumann
Choreography and Dance: Jin Xing Dance Theatre
Chen Kai, Duan Ni, Li Ying, Zhao Yuan Hang, Zhou Niannian
Music: Lutz Glandien and traditional Chinese compositions
Lights: Jochen Massar

Commissioned by the House of World Cultures, co-produced with Tanzcompagnie RUBATO, Berlin and Jin Xing Dance Theatre, Shanghai, supported by Senatsverwaltung für Wissenschaft, Forschung und Kultur, Berlin, and Lufthansa, Shanghai.
With friendly support by Hauptstadtkulturfonds and SCHERING.