At the end, the director of the Staatstheater Darmstadt, Karsten Wiegand, presented genuine roses to the eight dancers and four musicians.

All of the other plants in the piece are fabric, with plastic stems.

The choreographer Nadia Beugré beds her "Entre deux" on flowers.

But this "between two" is not romantic.

These stuffed things are like the feelings that the production plays with or about whose use it thinks about in dance.

At first there seems to be an order, the flowers forming an orange-yellow stripe at the bottom.

But in the empty field in front of it there is already disorder.

Maybe violence.

There is a man lying on his side, his bare legs stretched stiffly, his red dress pushed up, his hands clasping a bouquet of white flowers, a rose stuck in his mouth.

An image of misfortune or death, a woman.

Or what is she?

Almost clownish in a suit

In the face she turns out to be rather male, embodied by Tauwindsina Adonis Nebié.

From then on he is an outsider figure, who otherwise makes no fuss about wearing dresses and bras.

Later, a striped suit almost turns him into a clown.

But the others do not form a uniform society.

The threads of relationship between them are sometimes stretched to the breaking point, sometimes they get along easily with each other, as a group, small groups or in pairs.

Some kicking, neck grabbing, pulling, shoving looks like physical yelling, but it doesn't hurt anyone.

It smokes.

The grips on the arms, heads, hips or the cool looks could also be disguised tenderness, hidden under the cap of hardness.

This is the strength of Nadia Beugré's dance approach: the intensity with which the dancers encounter each other cannot be clearly classified as nice or dangerous.

This often keeps you on the edge of your chair while watching.

The ancestor Pina Bausch greets from afar;

She, too, had artificial flowers danced in “Carnations” and “The Window Cleaner”.

But she focused more on form.

Nadia Beugré, who after two guest performances in Darmstadt then led the interdisciplinary project "Atem/Souffle" in 2020, gives her dancers, who mainly come from African countries, the freedom to inject their own styles, martial arts jumps, hip-hop moves, a little broom dance, Flickflacks, the struggle of a foot with a shirt stretched over the head.

The overall tension of "Entre deux" crumbles.

Even the football parody, with a leap over the free-kick wall, doesn't work.

A terrible emptiness

The flowers gradually spread across the stage, punctuated by swirling, rolling dancers.

Some of them collect bouquets together, as if for gifts.

gifts of love

But they also throw bouquets and flowers like rubbish or whip them onto their own backs as scourges, abuse them.

Lucas Nicot's live band plays a rich bouquet of music: fast rhythms, hard drumming, soft singing on the saxophone, electronic imitations of instruments.

The undelicate up to the singing roar is less accompaniment than the other players of "Entre deux".

According to the programme, it was based on the legendary story of Don Giovanni or Don Juan, which you can safely forget.

The audience sits on pedestals on the stage: the stage in front of them, behind them the empty tiers of the big house like in a red cave.

An impression of something huge.

But “Entre deux” gives away this spatial sensation later.

Maybe we should have this terrible void - lockdown times!

– comprehend as one that lurks inside people or between them, between two.

roars.

Entre deux, Staatstheater Darmstadt, Georg-Büchner-Platz 1. Next performances on October 8th and November 4th, each at 7:30 p.m.