The eternal myth of love and desire. A man with a thousand faces. Seducer, cruel, heroic… Who is DON JUAN, really?
Two unique evenings in Helsinki. After setting the world’s great stages ablaze, Szeged Contemporary Dance Company returns to Helsinki with a gripping work: DON JUAN, choreographed by visionary choreographer Tamás Juronics. Since his literary birth, the myth of Don Juan has both fascinated and scandalised. Over the centuries, ideas of family, love, marriage and sexuality have changed radically… yet the enigma of Don Juan endures. Who is he, truly? A hero of passion or a ruthless predator? A sentimental lover or a cruel seducer? A narcissist consumed by his own desire, or a free man daring to live without guilt? On stage, DON JUAN unfolds like a storm of excess and contradiction. At times tender and beguiling, at times relentless and destructive, he embodies the ambiguity of the human condition. For deep down, Don Juan knows neither remorse nor regret: he lives in the moment, for pleasure, never acknowledging the consequences. A timeless figure who probes our relationship to desire, fidelity, and the eternal game between men and women. In a flamboyant staging with explosive physicality, extraordinary dramatic intensity, and dancers of incandescent energy, Tamás Juronics’s DON JUAN transcends eras and conventions to become a disquieting mirror of our contemporary world. A tempest of passion, desire, and tragedy. An unmissable highlight of the season.
Choreographer
Tamas Juronics
Artistic Director, dancer, choreographer and director (born February 5, 1969, Tata). After graduating from the Folk Dance Faculty of the Hungarian Dance Academy in 1987, he accepted the invitation of Zoltán Imre to join the Szeged Ballet where he became soloist from 1989. In 1990 he created his independent studio within the company for his choreographic experimentations. He started introducing his own choreographies from 1991 and remained the company’s leading soloist. In 1993, after the departure of Zoltán Imre, he became the Artistic Director of the renewed Szeged Contemporary Dance Company. In his creations, philosophy and emotions are mixed with intellectual motives. Among the Hungarian choreographers, he was the first to use the elements of contemporary dance which are characterized by clear technical skills; this partly lies in the modern methods such as Limon or Cunningham, partly in his own improvisational dance moves. As a guest teacher, he attended masterclasses in Amsterdam and Zurich (1994) and in Italy (1999, 2005). By now Juronics has grown to be an internationally acclaimed creator with 65 choreographies under his name. The careful combination of his storylines, the clear, unified form of dancing and the dramatic structure make his works a cathartic experience. Spectacular staging, lighting, effects, and music are also well-integrated parts of his works. Juronics successfully introduced himself as a director in the world of prose theatre as well and has also become a popular choreographer, director of several musicals and operas in many theatres.
Company
Szeged Contemporary Dance Company
The classical music repertoire of the company consists of theatrical dances based on the works of composers such as Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, Bartók, Orff, Eötvös, and the company’s varied repertoire also contains choreographies composed to musical montages. Besides the leading choreographer Tamás Jurionics, several renowned European choreographers created modern art dances for the company. In 1993 they picked up the name Szeged Contemporary Dance Company, with appointing Tamás Juronics as artistic director and András Pataki as executive director. Since 2000 the Szeged Contemporary Dance Company is working as an autonomous company in a form of prominently public benefit foundation. Besides their national successes, they have won the recognition of the audience and professionals while performing abroad on diverse occasions. Tamás Juronics had an outstanding role in forming their especially unique artistic identity. He considers the continuous training of the dancers and the enrichment of the repertoire to be his most important task. The ability of reception and individualization of the contemporary and modern technics, the high quality of the artistic expression based on the technical safety makes the repertoire to be incredibly varied, yet unique. Among the peculiarities of the artistic characters, we should emphasize the diverse effect-elements of performing styles that compose originality. Respecting the ‘laws of stage’ is a defining attribute in their shows, so is the using of theatrical means - in the literal sense of the word - that are enhancing the effect and intensity of vision. The Szeged Contemporary Dance Company is a constant guest of local and oversea dance stages. The company itself and its dancers have also been rewarded by international and national, vocational and as well audience prices. During their tours, the ensemble played in 22 different countries 134 times in the last 22 years.
Music: Christoph Willibald Gluck
