Stabat MATER – March 30 to April 6, 2021

Les Grands Ballets presents

Stabat MATER

Neoclassical Ballet

Les Grands Ballets broadens their digital offer with a full-length web broadcast of Stabat MATER by choreographer Edward Clug.
Presented for free from March 30 to April 6, 2021, the piece will offer the public an intimate incursion in the universe of Les Grands Ballets.

This contemporary creation by young choreographer Edward Clug, who also brilliantly revisited the celebrated Carmina Burana last season, has known success since its premiere in 2017. Filmed directly on the stage of the company’s Studio-Théâtre and in compliance with the sanitary measures, this first full-length broadcast of the show will bring the spectators to the very first row, allowing them to discover Stabat MATER and the company’s dancers in a completely new light.

‘’Stabat MATER is a highly emotional piece that requires a broad dramatic range from our dancers. Presenting a show in a digital format is a different experience: the public sees the piece from up-close. I decided that if we couldn’t be onstage, I would take advantage of this constraint and give my audience a front row Stabat MATER, like they’ve never seen it before.’’ – Ivan Cavallari, Artistic Director of Les Grands Ballets

Presented for the first time in 2017 in a mesmerizing double bill with a spiritual focus, Stabat MATER by Edward Clug features the company’s dancers on the notes of another great musical work. The choreographer engages a resolutely modern dialogue with Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater, a masterpiece of the Italian Baroque. For Clug, the tremendously expressive score conveys life and hope.

“Choreographer Edward Clug created his Stabat MATER for the Ballet of the theatre Staatstheater am Gärtnerplat Munich in July 2013. Within the context of Pergolesi’s legendary hymn from 1736, which is an example of unique sound depiction of the sorrow and suffering of the Holy Mary, Clug wanted to make a choreographic translation of his own experience of Pergolesi’s sacred music, and in a deeper sense even metaphysical masterpiece. Purity, simplicity, and even some moments of unexpected exclamations of joy were the choreographer’s first encouragement to find the missing contemporary link to Pergolesi’s hymn, which is to Clug’s perception, and contrary to the common opinion, more likely a sound depiction of hope than of the pain. Indeed, the hope that is conveyed in Pergolesi’s spirited music has provoked the choreographer to reflect upon everyday life of contemporary women and men.” – Slovene National Theatre Maribor

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