Promise
choreography: Sharon Eyal
co-creator: Gai Behar
music: Ori Lichtik
costume design: Rebecca Hytting
stage and light design: Alon Cohen
assistants to choreographer: Rebecca Hytting, Keren Lurie Pardes
rehearsal director: Natalia Rodina
duration: 50’
premiere: Staatstheater Mainz, 2021
dancers: Amber Pansters, Maasa Sakano, Marija Slavec, Zachary Chant, Finn Lakeberg, Cornelius Mickel, Matti Tauru
director of TanzMainz: Honne Dohrmann
production manager: Lisa Besser
assistant to director: Julia Kraus
tour manager: Hannah Meyer-Scharenberg
stage and sound set up on tour: Luka Curk
light set up on tour: Dominik Hager
stage manager on tour: Matthew Tusa
Sharon Eyal is an internationally sought-after choreographer, who demands the extraordinary from the ensemble in dance, combining ballet physicality with electronic music. “Promise” is Eyal's third world premiere with TanzMainz and the continued development of her virtuoso skills. In this creation she has taken the complex interplay of discipline and devotion, the magical formula of dance, to the extreme. On stage, a group of people are intrinsically linked to each other, sometimes even as a single body. Figures in a shadowy world at each other's mercy - confinement and love, closeness and longing, ecstasy and loneliness - everything seems to blur and yet is clearly discernible in precious brief moments. “Promise” is like a dream. Almost unreal images disappear as quickly as they came, having etched themselves into the viewer's brain. 50 minutes as a glimpse of eternity…
Sharon Eyal was born in Jerusalem. She danced with the Batsheva Dance Company from 1990 until 2008, and began choreographing within the framework of the company’s “Batsheva Dancers Create” project. Eyal served as Associate Artistic Director of Batsheva (2003-2004), and House Choreographer of the company (2005-2012). In 2009 Eyal began creating pieces for other dance companies in the world: “Killer Pig” (2009) and “Corps de Walk” (2011) for Carte Blanche Dance of Norway; “Too Beaucoup” (2011) for Hubbard Street Dance Chicago and “Plafona” (2012) for Tanzcompagnie Oldenburg. In 2013, Eyal launches L-E-V with her long-time collaborator Gai Behar. In 2015, they premiered “Untitled Black” in collaboration with the Goteborgs Operans Danskompani. Eyal is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Israeli Ministry of Culture Award for young dance creators (2004), Landau Prize for the Performing Arts (2009), as well as she was named a Chosen Artist of the Israel Cultural Excellence Foundation (2008). Her works were successfully performed at the Belgrade Dance Festival, and Eyal is laureate of Jovan Ćirilov Award in 2017.
TanzMainz is the contemporary dance company of State Theater in Mainz. Since 2014, dance director Honne Dohrmann has been leading the ensemble of 22 excellent dancers, rehearsal and production team. Performances are originally created for this ensemble by guest choreographers such as Guy Weizman & Roni Haver, Sharon Eyal & Gai Behar, Guy Nader & Maria Campos, Koen Augustijnen & Rosalba Torres Guerrero, Garry Stewart, Danièle Desnoyers, José Navas, Roy Assaf, Victor Quijada...
