Schönberg’s musical score was inspired by a Richard Dehmel poem about confession and forgiveness. A woman confesses to her companion that she is pregnant by another man. He decides to accept it and shows much tenderness and comprehension. I chose to question the simplicity of this confession, to unfold this precise moment in the poem and to demonstrate the resistance and the pits that could entail from such a situation.
M point of view implied that such a confession, and such forgiveness, could only be given in the dark, in the in-between. In the full light, it would have been considered as an intolerable sin, which would have seen her crucified like a butterfly to a canvas. And the surprising introduction of Vivaldi’s glittering music emphasises this overexposure.
Strategies had to be defined to create a choreography that blended with the lyrically charged Transfigured Night. It required distancing myself from the musical score while also trying to make the music heard in the dance movements.
I began working with Richard Dehmel’s poem. Schönberg drew his music from it: I used it to create the choreography, before confronting it to the music. The triangulation was a liberating experience: as if Dehmel’s Nighthad enabled me to immerse myself in Schönberg’s own.
Finally, the idea of a hunt worked its way into the piece: a multitude of antlers conjured up the image of a forest, but also of a pending threat, like a snapshot of the wild and the living.

The night’s delicate subtleties are followed by the crushing state of dawn. When Philippe Saire throws himself into Schönberg’s musical score, he transcends all notions of space and time, and it’s a great success.
Nathalie Yokel, La Terrasse

The nuances of the twilight are translated phenomenally (…)
Franziska Buhre, Tanz, Berlin

The collusion of contemporary dance and classical music; of the baroque and the romantic; of night and day… All these triangulations create meaning and tensions and draw the edges of a black diamond.
Julien Burri, L’Hebdo

La Cie Philippe Saire tient à remercier la Camerata de Lausanne et ses musiciens et musiciennes, ainsi que ses partenaires et soutiens, l’équipe administrative et technique de l’Opéra de Lausanne, Jérémy Conne, Gérard Allaz, Thierry Sartoretti et l’équipe administrative et technique du Théâtre Sévelin 36.