The triple bill Ikonen unfolds as a powerful journey through human archetypes, memory, and ritual, presenting three choreographic voices that could not be more different, yet deeply connected.
The evening opens with Noces by Angelin Preljocaj, a work rooted in Eastern European culture and marriage rituals. Here, love is not romanticized but exposed as a structure of power, submission, and tradition. The dancers move with sharp, percussive precision, evoking the imagery of puppet brides pulled by invisible strings—caught between collective expectation and personal fate. Preljocaj strips the wedding ritual down to its raw, almost brutal essence, revealing the tension between desire and domination that still resonates today.
The second piece, Alte Erde by Stijn Celis, shifts both atmosphere and scale. Strikingly, the choreography is carried by just three dancers, whose physical presence is amplified through video projections that become an extension of the body. With an evocative homage to Africa, the work draws on earthy rhythms, grounded movement, and powerful visual imagery. The videos do not decorate the dance—they converse with it, expanding the stage into a landscape of ancestral memory and shared origin.
The evening culminates in ICONIC: Pink Floyd by Diego Tortelli. It begins in near darkness, pierced by the unsettling image of an observing eye, immediately capturing the audience’s attention. From this haunting opening, the choreography pulls us into an intense experience of fragmentation and unity. Small, almost imperceptible steps explore the duality of the self: the constant negotiation between belonging and separation, individuality and collective existence. These are timeless themes of the human soul, rendered here with visceral clarity.
Three works, three visions—yet together they form a single reflection: the iconic lives not in grand gestures alone, but in the recurring patterns of love, ritual, identity, and resistance that define us all.
This human dimension leads naturally into the conversation with Diego Tortelli, whose work directly engages with the idea of icons—not as static images, but as living, breathing embodiments of collective consciousness. In the following interview, we reflect on how music, space, technology, and memory converge in his choreographic language, opening a dialogue on what it truly means to become iconic today.
Your choreography ICONIC: Pink Floyd for Ikonen is born from a direct dialogue with the music of the 1970s. In what way has this musical language influenced your way of thinking about movement and stage narration?
The Pink Floyd music of the 1970s has never been, for me, a simple accompaniment, but rather a true mental space. In ICONIC: Pink Floyd – PRISMA, the dialogue with The Dark Side of the Moon profoundly influenced my way of thinking about movement as a flow of thought, rather than as a narrative gesture.
The album’s circular structure and its ability to suggest without ever describing led me to build a choreography that does not tell a linear story, but instead moves through states of existence: birth, chaos, ambition, madness, breath, return. Movement thus becomes a physical translation of sound, a thought that takes on a body and transforms continuously, just like the beam of light passing through the prism.
Your work often includes the insertion of technological or theoretical elements. In Ikonen, were there moments in which technology or non-dance concepts dictated choreographic choices?
In Ikonen, technology never dictates the choreography, but amplifies its meaning. The work on light, developed with Matthias Singer, together with the use of smoke and projections, creates a perceptual environment that profoundly influences the way dancers inhabit the space.
Non-dance concepts such as the prism, refraction, or circular continuity become true choreographic engines. Movement often arises from an abstract idea that then finds, in the body, its most fragile, human, and necessary form.
Saarbrücken represents a new international stage. To what extent did the collaboration with the Staatstheater open spaces for experimentation compared to projects already realized with Aterballetto or Tanzbüro München?
Although Saarbrücken was not my first Staatstheater — but the second, after Orfeo ed Euridice in Hanover and the re-staging of Hole in Space at the Athens Opera — the dancers of Saarbrücken were a wonderful discovery for me.
I have been working with Aterballetto for eight years and they represent my “home,” but I deeply believe that in order to continue growing it is also necessary to step outside, absorb new energies, and accept new challenges.
In Saarbrücken it was stimulating to enter a neutral space, start from zero, let myself be influenced by the dancers, and feel strongly supported by the artistic direction in realizing my vision. I came out of it regenerated and with the desire that this be only the beginning of a shared path.
Finally, looking to the future, which other international collaborations or performative scenarios fascinate you, and how do you imagine your artistic language will evolve over the next five years?
I would very much like to keep alive the relationships with the companies I work with. Returning to Saarbrücken and creating together again would be a great joy for me. I am a person who becomes deeply attached to paths and struggles to say goodbye.
I dream of engaging with great narratives such as Carmen or masterpieces like Ravel’s Bolero, while at the same time continuing the more intimate and research-oriented projects with Miria Wurm and the work in major events, such as the Olympics.
I would be fascinated to direct a concert for artists such as Björk or Rosalía and, one day, to have my own company and my own theater, to watch others create and to accompany dancers on their journey.
I hope that in five years I will still have the same doubts as today, the same urgency to question myself, and the same visceral love for what I do.
Elisa Cutullè
Foto: Bettina Stöß