Heinz Spoerli

Nearly in the beginning of Prix de Lausanne I have been asked to be in the Jury. And from the beginning on I could see what great opportunity it is to meet dancers of different nations with the same interest: LOVE OF DANCE, and have the chance to work with some of greatest Teachers and Jurys from all over the world.

“You have to bury the depth. Where? On the surface.” That is what Hugo von Hofmannsthal wrote in his Buch der Freunde, or book of friends.

Applying his characteristic perfection, the choreographer Heinz Spoerli has often stuck to that golden rule. The outer layer of Spoerli’s ballets is formed of flawless, flowing movement, harmonious lines, shapely form, carefully calculated optical elements in aesthetically balanced unity with the scenery and lighting. The basis for Spoerli’s works is the classic danse d’école, which he employs in manifold ways. In fact, in close alliance with the music, Spoerli’s dance creations embody the very stuff of human relationships: longing and pain, loneliness and joie de vivre, and sometimes comic adventures too. That is because Heinz Spoerli possesses a marked sense of the comical and he is a perceptive observer of human behaviour. As with Hofmannsthal’s artistic motto, that conjures up a human image which embodies the fluid nature of human existence: “We are surrounded by nothing but the ephemeral, the many-named non-being, and beyond that lies the unfathomable abyss of existence.” Spoerli portrays that abyss in his ballets in floating, moving forms, lending them an aesthetically charming exterior in which the choreographer conceals the depth of feelings in an almost discreet and circumspect manner.

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Martina Wohlthat, www.spoerli.ch