Verwandlungen

In the organizer's words:

I'm afraid to forget your smile

Choreography, stage and costumes: Imre van Opstal / Marne van Opstal

Butterfly

Choreography, stage and costumes: Sol León / Paul Lightfoot

The fleeting nature of life and the beauty of the moment - what art form is better able to explore this than dance? For the premiere of Verwandlungen, ballet director Goyo Montero has invited two generations of artist duos who, with their unique language of movement, ask: What are our ideas of life and death? Where are we going? What changes are we striving for?
Sol León and Paul Lightfoot have shaped the Nederlands Dans Theater Den Haag for decades as dancers, choreographers and artistic directors. Since 1989, they have formed a creative epicenter as a duo working on an equal footing.
Siblings Imre and Marne van Opstal also made a career as dancers at the NDT. Today, their sculptural choreographies make them one of the most interesting voices in contemporary dance. With I'm afraid to forget your smile in 2022, they created a touching fight against transience to choral works of archaic beauty and meditative power. Butterfly by Sol León and Paul Lightfoot tells a fragile story of parting between a mother and her son in powerful images, but also with fine poetry and subtle humor. "The word butterfly contains everything that defines this ballet: the fleeting nature of a performance, the absurd cabaret of life and the rapid passage of time," says Paul Lightfoot about the dance piece created in 2010 to music by Max Richter and love songs by indie rock band The Magnetic Fields.