Tänze der Welt

With Tänze der Welt, the Sinfonieorchester Opus125 e.V. developed a project around dances from different periods, countries and musical traditions. The programme travelled through Europe and Latin America with works by Jean-Philippe Rameau, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Antonín Dvořák, Béla Bartók, Manuel de Falla, Armando Guevara Ochoa, Enrique Soro, Astor Piazzolla and Arturo Márquez. Dance became a starting point for exploring how music grows out of a culture, enters into dialogue with tradition and transforms it within the orchestral language.

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The concert on 6 May 2023 at the Kunstwerk Wickrath was the result of a four-month period of collaborative work involving members of the Sinfonieorchester Opus125 e.V., students from the Robert Schumann Hochschule Düsseldorf and young people from the Gesamtschule Hardt. During this time, open rehearsals, workshops, interviews and encounters created a direct exchange between musicians, students, cultural practitioners and participants.

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Through the CREATiVE SPACE, led by Dorothée Vollmer, the young participants approached the programme through their own interests. Photography, illustration, design, printmaking, costume design and editorial work became different ways of investigating music. Together with photographer Frank Breuer, they worked on movement and light in theatre photography; in other workshops, listening to the works became the starting point for images, portraits of composers and costume ideas.

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The project also opened a wider dialogue about music and its place in different societies. In a conversation with conductor David del Pino Klinge, students and teachers reflected on music mediation in Latin America and Europe. The exchange with Theo Tupayachi and the Orquesta Sinfónica de Cusco brought in perspectives from musical life in Peru and opened questions about the relationship between orchestra, repertoire and community.

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The collaboration with the Enrique Soro Stiftung also made it possible to engage with the work and legacy of the Chilean composer Enrique Soro and with the task of preserving and sharing his music beyond Chile.

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The results of the process — interviews, texts, research and visual works — were brought together in a special edition of Standpunkt, conceived as a concert magazine. In this way, the preparation of the programme itself became a visible part of the artistic experience.

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Tänze der Welt grew out of a simple idea: a concert can become a different kind of experience when each person finds their own way into the music. It was not necessary to be a musician to become part of the process. Music was the meeting point; the project was a collective creation.