There were also tears in my eyes.

First, because you can finally see real dance again.

Emanuel Gat has already brought a critical mass to the stage with eleven of his international dancers.

Something is moving, the space is re-conquered after all this time in which dance was mostly seen on video or in an extremely small circle - and almost not felt.

The first live dates of the season triggered such jubilation, now the Israeli, France-based focus artist has entranced the audience to standing ovations at the opening of the sixth Rhein-Main dance festival, and not only on the premiere evening.

Eva-Maria Magel

Head of culture editor Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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Which, secondly, is possibly also due to the music he has chosen. When “Vissi d'arte” roars through the large hall in the Frankfurt Lab, the voice of Maria Callas can be heard down to every line of text and every breath, then it has an enormous effect. The fact that “Tosca”, in the legendary recording from 1965, conducted by Georges Prêtre, with Maria Callas as Floria Tosca, Carlo Bergonzi as Cavaradossi and Tito Gobbi as Police Chief Scarpia, swings through the room, also gives goose bumps in people who otherwise rarely with opera on the hat. Especially when there is dancing in the first half, solo and in small groups, stark naked. The human creature shows itself, reduced to itself, in that which is controllable as well as in that which cannot be governed in the body by dance willpower.Coming and going in the semi-darkness of a stage that is empty except for a few rectangles of light, plus the great drama of “Tosca” - you can almost imagine how Gat and his dancers in a studio in Metz, far away from the home of the company in Marseille who used Lockdown to work on the new track “Act II & III or The Unexpected Return Of Heaven And Earth” in just ten days, with the music turned up loud.

From behind comes yawning and panting

The reduction to the high-performing dancer's body in the first part gives way to the black clothes and suits in the second, the ensemble comes together, short fragments of scenes, love, anger, and struggle can be heard.

But even if Gat insists on the independence of music and dance and on the fact that he does not interpret or tell: "Act II & III" demonstrates that dance can very well be illustrative, which does not lead to particularly fundamental thoughts.

But it doesn't bother anyone in this big reunion celebration with a great, rousing dance.

It's different with Gry Tingskog, which can also be seen at the beginning of the festival.

Artist from Sweden and currently enrolled in the master’s course in choreography and performance at the Institute for Applied Theater Studies in Giessen, lets the audience know that they work primarily in the dark - which is also the case in “Warp”.

Tingskog and three colleagues meander, crawl and waft through the room for 50 minutes under reflective, electrified and cautiously colored striped blankets, which are somehow reminiscent of “silk pillows” caramel sweets.

It should be due to the dark to semi-darkness that nobody is upset about this poor show, audible yawning and panting from the back rows speaks for it.

Awake and funny

Raimonda Gudavičiute's dance biographical piece “(M) other”, which she developed with her eight-year-old son Elias Haun, is completely different, unpretentious, wide awake and, in a funny way, tender and personal.

Also created during the lockdown, when everyone, parents and children, sat, lived and worked much closer together than usual, she and her child thought about motherhood, being a child and dancing in dance.

This has turned into an entertaining, thought-provoking piece for audiences from the age of eight.

The Rhein-Main dance festival will continue until November 14th in Frankfurt, Wiesbaden, Darmstadt and Offenbach.

Information at tanzfestivalrheinmain.de