It begins with pop, and it ends with pop.

Because many operas used to be nothing other than pop, which was trumpeted in the streets, says Emanuel Gat.

Also Puccini's "Tosca".

Gat, born in 1969, noticed how quickly pop gets old when he choreographed “Lovetrain 2020”.

The new wave hits from Tears For Fears accompanied his youth - for his dancers, young as they are, “Shout” or “Everybody Wants To Rule The World” were virtually unknown.

Eva-Maria Magel

Head of culture editor Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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“Lovetrain 2020”: Gat worked on the songs from Tears For Fears at the beginning of 2020, but there were always breaks in the process due to Corona.

When the premiere took place in France between two lockdowns in autumn 2020, the audience reacted enthusiastically.

The secluded months had probably given the lively and joyful energy of eighties music and dance a completely different meaning, Gat suspects.

Now he will show “Lovetrain 2020” in the large house of the Darmstadt State Theater, almost exactly halfway through this year's Rhein-Main dance festival, which will take place from October 28 to November 14 in Frankfurt, Wiesbaden, Darmstadt and Offenbach.

Choreographer by chance

Because Gat, born in Israel, with his family and five children who were still young at the time, moved to France in 2007 and is this year's “Spotlight” artist at the festival. It's a return: in 2018 he worked with Ensemble Modern with music by Pierre Boulez and Rebecca Saunders, among others, “Story Water” was shown in Avignon and then at the Rhein-Main dance festival. Gat already amazed the local audience in 2015 when he showed “The Goldlandbergs”, the focus being on Goldberg Variations of the Alte Oper. A fascinating combination of sound documents by Glenn Gould, bathed in golden light and danced as if detached.

What is detached is a principle: Gat, who has received many awards, does not let music "dance to" or dance it away. “It is not a service of one for the other,” he says. Which is possibly a result of his career: Gat, always been athletic, wanted to be a musician. He was a clarinet player and willing to study conducting at the Rubin Music Academy in Tel Aviv when he happened to be in a dance workshop at the age of 23. It was love at first sight - and Gat started choreographing almost immediately. In 2004 he founded his own company.

What music and dance have in common: each being a composition that can be heard and seen. In the choreography they come together in the same room. “It's a dialogue, a conversation, what interests me is creating counterpoints,” says Gat. “I can work with very different genres”, there is music that suggests that he should work choreographically, and “the music forces me to keep rethinking the choreographic process”. He sees his entire work as a continuous choreography in which lighting design, composition and photography are also choreographies, only in different forms. With photo installations in the Kunsthaus Wiesbaden, this part of his art can now also be seen, which he started ten years ago, often dissatisfied with it,that the essence of his work could not be felt in the stage photographs of his pieces.

Piece made in two weeks

At the opening of the festival, “Act II & III” works with “Tosca”, in the legendary 1965 recording with Maria Callas, conducted by Georges Prêtre.

The counterpart of pop, so to speak, emerged in that critical phase when all cultural life was idle in January 2021 and all guest performances were canceled.

The piece was created in just under two weeks, in Metz, far away from Gat, who lives and works in Marseille.

Marseille is different from the rest of France, he says, more southerly, maybe that's why he feels so comfortable there.

However, the damage caused by Corona is also clear in France.

The number of viewers has collapsed by around 40 percent, says Gat.

It will never be the same again - but when, he asks with a grin, was it ever the same again?

There will also be a countermovement to the current change in society, which Gat perceives as destructive.

Dance is the art that needs real encounters in space most, says Gat.

And do not doubt that it will continue to exist.

"It takes time."

The Rhein-Main dance festival takes place from October 28th to November 14th.

Emanuel Gat can be seen in several audience discussions.

Information tanzfestivalrheinmain.de