Saburo Teshigawara: Broken Lights

With his new performance Broken Lights, Japanese dancer and choreographer Saburo Teshigawara is performing for the first time at this year’s Ruhrtriennale. In Broken Lights, he will literally dance glass to pieces along with dancer Rihoko Sato.

The sound of breaking glass and reflecting light creates a situation in which the stage space and our sense of time transform constantly. In the tense relationship between the dancer and the material, new perspectives constantly open on movement and the body. With each performance, the stage fills with more and more broken glass. Each performance thus begins in a new starting situation, a new landscape of glass shards that at the same time is a document of all preceding evenings. Saburo Teshigawara, an exceptional artist who not only works as a dancer and a choreographer but also as a visual artist and a filmmaker, has enjoyed an international reputation since the mid-1980s. Alongside solo performances and productions with his group Karas, he has also worked with various international companies including Nederlands Dans Theater, Ballett Frankfurt and the Paris Opera Ballet. For his performances, Teshigawara usually designs his own costumes, lighting, and set. With a sculptural sensibility, a strong sense for sound and spatial composition, and his own language of movement, he has created a unique style all his own.