At the helm of the S.O.A.P. Dance Theatre in Frankfurt since 1991, Rui Horta is one of the hottest up-and-coming choreographers in Germany today. His dance, full of drive and overflowing with energy, won him the 1992 Bagnolet competition: with 'Wolfgang, bitte...', the opening piece of 'Made to measure', Horta won the grand prize of the national selection and the New Choreography Award. After working several years in the United States, Horta directed the Lisbon Dance company in Portugal for some time. Besides teaching regularly in New York and many cities in Europe, he collaborated with the company Metros (Spain) and the Gulbenkian Ballet (Portugal) . Together with visual artists, performers and musicians, he has participated in several projects, including (in collaboration with the American painter Rita Simon) the 'Great Art Warehouse'. For his latest project 'Rui Horta and Friends' he created 'Line' and 'Interiores'.
With the S.O.A.P. Dance Theatre, resident company at the Mousonturm in Frankfurt, Horta created his first work in '91, entitled 'Long before the end'. On stage are large rectangular blocks that can be moved: a barrier against which Horta constructs a dance of violent contrasts. Also here, as in other theatre productions born in recent years in Germany, one cannot help but think of a reference to the fall of the Berlin Wall.
"Made to measure" is the result of the union of three different pieces created by Horta for S.O.A.P.: the aforementioned "Wolfgang, bitte...", born in '91, "Ordinary Events" and "Diving", both from '92. 'Wolfgang, bitte...' is a homage to Mozart's music. Whirling falls to the ground, gazes projected upwards for a dance played on verticality and on a spatial and spiritual tension continually poised between high and low. The seven dancers dressed in white dance Mozart, giving a multifaceted and happily non-canonical interpretation of the composer's music.
"Ordinary Events" sees three couples on stage, spatially separated into as many parallel zones, bordered by red carpets. The movement is set to the pounding music of Tambours du Bronx: the result is a dance of impulses, a 90s contact, aggressive and protesting. The three couples initially play around three chairs, which are then abandoned to launch themselves into a violent dance that takes over the whole scene. The chairs stand in the background, giving the impression of being there as objects symbolically representing social conventions with which one is not in tune.
Finally, 'Diving'. Blue basins, filled with water, between which dancers in swimming costumes move. High above this imaginary pool, a diver counterpoints Etienne Schwarcz's music with verbal nonsense, issuing alarming fall warnings. Below, a dance of fake dives, stiff bodies flying into the arms of their companions. Only at times does the whole thing soften, colouring itself with an aquatic quality: further proof of the lively creativity of the author in question.
