Teatrodanza
Urs Dietrich
Director Bremer TanzTheater
"For me the stage is a holy place, but also as brutal as Judgement Day. The truth has to be brought to light - it's no different than death. You have to go through it, whether you want to or not - it's a now or never situation and a magical process."
Born in Visp, Switzerland, Urs Dietrich acquired a
degree in Textile and Costume Design before studying dance at
the Folkwang Hochschule in Essen from 1981 to 1985. In 1986, he
continued his studies in New York. Since 1988, he has been
working as a freelance dancer and choreographer creating
numerous ensemble and solo dance pieces which have been
presented as guest productions in Europe, Asia, India, as well
as in North- and South America. The world premieres of his
acclaimed solo works “Da war
plötzlich...-Herzkammern” (1995) and
“An der Grenze des
Tages” were presented at the Hebbel Theater,
Berlin.
From 1994 to 1996, Urs Dietrich co-directed the Bremer Tanztheater with Susanne Linke and has been director since 2000.
Dietrich has won numerous prizes, among others the Kurt-Jooss-Preis of the City of Essen (1985) and Production Prize of North Rhine-Westphalia (1990).
In recent years, he has been applying his artistic skills to cinematography, creating dance and documentary films.
“Aesthetically speaking, it's hard to say what influenced Urs Dietrich most: studying at the dance department of Essen's Folkwang School, where the 23-year-old Swiss student was accepted in 1981, after acquiring a degree in Textile Design; or his partnership with Susanne Linke, for whom he soon became the junior partner: as dancer, choreographer, and finally as ballet director, in his first years in Bremen.
A characterization penned by Patrica Stückemann and found in the American International Dictionary of Modern Dance christens Dietrich a bona fide Folkwang choreographer: Behind every movement in his pieces lies the "conviction that no movement is ever conceived solely for the sake of that movement alone. It's never the dancer, but more so the dancer as a human being that carries the choreographies of Dietrich".
Not excluded here is that, in phases, Dietrich's
pieces such as Versus or
Every.Body deal intensively with
studying the body in dance (ultimately leading to the implicit
conclusion that today's excessive body cult promotes the
disappearance of the erotic), or that many of his pieces such
as Sanguis possess extended and
purely playful passages which convey the treatment of everyday
occurrences at a comic peak using minimalist games of
dance.
The solo dances by Dietrich, however Da war plötzlich...-Herzkammern or the most recent piece Chronisch are what bring the choreographer in the aesthetic and qualitative vicinity of Susanne Link, with their dark and multileveled imagery, and brilliant movements, one surpassing the other, that never ring superficial showcasing a lineage that leads directly from German Ausdruckstanz of the 1920s.“
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