Reinhild Hoffmann: one of the key figures of German tanztheater. Her path is intertwined with that of Susanne Linke, Pina Bausch, Gerhard Bohner, Hans Kresnik, like her protagonists 'in primis' of one of the most stimulating performance forms of European origin.
Hoffmann's name has for many years been associated with the Bremer Tanztheater. First as co-director with Kresnik ('78/'81), then on her own ('81/'86), the German artist led the Bremen group for almost a decade, producing such far-reaching works as "Callas" ('83), "Dido und Aeneas" ('84) and "Föhn" ('85).
An author of refined aesthetics, attentive to detail, Hoffmann is a master in the editing of imaginative, rich, well-calibrated performances. Incommunicability, the difficulty of relations between men and women, and violence against the female sex are some of the recurring themes of her works.
Like Linke, Hoffmann studied at the Folkwanghochschule in Essen and danced in the Folkwang-Tanzstudio. It was in this environment that she began her choreographic activity in 1975, the year in which she became artistic director of the Folkwang-Tanzstudio together with Linke. Her path in solo dance has different timescales than the similar experiences of Bohner and Linke. In fact, Hoffmann began her career as a choreographer by creating mostly solos, in contrast to Bohner and Linke who devoted themselves to solo dance already as established authors. Suffice it to mention the extraordinary 'Solo mit Sofa', created by Hoffmann in '77 in Essen.
Already in this famous piece, the typical aesthetics of the author were clearly defined. The struggle against social constraints was reflected in the exhausting contrast between protagonist and stage object, a frequent pair since then. An example of this was the famous solo evening in 1980, which, alongside 'Solo mit Sofa', presented 'Bretter', stones in 'Steine' to symbolically represent the social and personal problems of everyday life. Since '86 Reinhild Hoffmann has moved to the Schauspielhaus in Bochum with most of her dancers.
Today she is still in Bochum, but the direction of her work has recently changed. If contemporary choreographers in France seem to be more and more inclined to build up a repertoire, and if the 1990s saw Bausch reassembling old pieces such as 'Iphigenie auf Tauria' is 'Orpheus und Eurydike', in Bochum Hoffmann opts for a completely different choice. With a clean break with the past, the German artist has decided to turn over a new leaf. No more rearrangements of old works, but creations: a brand new immersion in research, the theme of choice being myth. For the current direction of the work, Hoffmann is performing in a rather original venue: the bathroom area of an abandoned factory. In this space, which can be transformed into a theatre, Hoffmann and her company rehearse. The first performance created here is entitled "Zeche Eins": it is a work dedicated to the myth of Orestes, whose preparatory studies, "1991" and "Vier", Hoffmann presents in Rovereto, recreated this summer for the Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon, thematically completing them with "Bretter" and "Coda". On stage alongside Hoffmann are musician Elena Chernin, set designer-dancer Robert Allen and Italian dancer Remo Rostagno.
