Dance Project: “Le Sacre du printemps”

It marked the launch of the Berliner Philharmoniker’s highly acclaimed education programme: Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du printemps, danced by over 250 young people between the ages of 8 and 22, with the music provided by the Berliner Philharmoniker under the direction of Sir Simon Rattle. With a team led by the English choreographer Royston Maldoom, the rehearsals were documented in the film Rhythm Is It! by Thomas Grube and Enrique Sánchez Lansch – an international, multi award-winning success in cinemas.

This performance and film added another significant date to the exciting reception history of Stravinsky’s masterpiece which includes the notorious Paris premiere in 1913 as well as the groundbreaking formal analysis by Pierre Boulez, the choreographies of Pina Bausch and Sasha Waltz, and Leonard Bernstein’s rehearsal with the youth orchestra of the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival from 1988 which is also documented on film. Like Bernstein, Rattle and Maldoom also demonstrate a great educational passion: the desire to let as many people of all ages and from all walks of life participate in classical music. Royston Maldoom, who has initiated and carried out numerous projects around the world with both beginners and experienced students and amateurs and professionals, came relatively late to dance himself; it opened up to him the possibilities of artistic self-expression and the emancipation of a life seemingly prescribed by origin and environment.

Maldoom was supported in his work by the internationally experienced choreographer Susannah Broughton and Volker Eisenach, head of the Faster Than Light Dance Company which also participated in the production. The performance – an unforgettable experience for both spectators and participants – can now be viewed in full length in the Digital Concert Hall.