Contemporary ballet in Lugano finds a new declination at LAC - Lugano Art and Culture, which between late January and early February offers two distinct events united by a profound exploration of the body, movement, and transformation. The Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève will perform a new creation by Damien Jalet, and, just a few days later, Gardi Hutter will perform a work that marks a shift in perspective in his long career.
On Thursday 29th and Friday 30th January, at 20pm, the Lugano stage welcomes The Mirage,, a choreographic project born from the meeting between Jalet, internationally recognized Franco-Belgian choreographer, and Japanese visual artist Kohei NawaThe work continues their artistic collaboration, developing a language that blends dance and visual arts in a fluid continuum, devoid of clear boundaries.
The starting point is the optical phenomena of mirages and the Fata Morgana, illusions generated by the refraction of light in particular atmospheric conditions. From here, a symbolic landscape takes shape, an abstract desert in which the sixteen dancers embody a suspended humanity, searching for definition. The choreography proceeds through successive layers, revealing bodies and emotional states through a sequence of metamorphoses that draw on archaic mythologies, climatology, botany, and even entomology.
The reference to thehayagawari, a Kabuki theatre technique that involves sudden transformations on stage, becomes the key to understanding a show that is built on instability. The Mirage, It alternates moments of rarefaction, in which the shadows of an exhausted civilization emerge, with passages dominated by intense colors and tropical suggestions. The result is an experience that unfolds like a daydream, constantly evolving, consistent with the aesthetic of contemporary ballet in Lugano proposed by the LAC.
The program continues on Friday 6 February, again at 20pm, with gardiZERO, new work by Gardi Hutter Presented in the Sala Teatro. Directed by Michael Vogel and recently premiered at the Theatre Casino Zug, the show marks a turning point in the career of Switzerland's most famous clown. After nine creations centered on the theme of death, an archetype of comic tradition, Hutter shifts her focus to the origin, the moment when nothingness transforms into possibility.
The stage is deliberately bare, but the empty space becomes living matter. Speechless, relying exclusively on physicality and a humor that alternates between buffoonery and philosophical reflection, the clown goes through a process that goes from the first spasm to complete transformation. gardiZERO opposites coexist: emptiness and creation, lightness and intensity, silence and gesture.
In a cultural context often saturated with stimuli and information, the show invites us to slow down, to linger on the initial moment, celebrating the wonder of continuous movement. The production is a co-production with LAC Lugano Arte e Cultura, Theaterhaus Stuttgart, and Theatre Casino Zug, confirming a network of collaborations that strengthens the international profile of the program.
Taken together, these events outline a complex picture of body-based art – be it dance or clowning – in Lugano, between choreographic experimentation, physical theatre and a profound reflection on our movement as a place of transformation and meaning.
Theater in Lugano: revisited classics, new works, and perspectives on the present
