The politics of memory, the way a work is perceived and passed on, the story of a transmission made flesh on stage: for a long time now, Olga de Soto has placed the question of the archive at the heart of her work. For years she has followed the trail of Kurt Jooss's The Green Table — a satirical ballet that became a legend of German Tanztheater, created in 1932 at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, as Nazism was rising across Europe. Inspired by a medieval dance of death, this piece in eight scenes for sixteen performers denounces, through mime and expressive dance, the absurdity and savagery of war. Often called the first political ballet, it has traveled through the decades ever since, carrying its pacifist message.
Alert to everything the work holds within it that can be reawakened, Olga de Soto builds a living, unbroken dialogue with it, bringing the body, quite literally, into the archive. On a bare stage, alongside a screen showing videos and period documents, she tells the story of this ballet — its origins, its reception, its afterlife — and shares with the audience the thread of her long investigation. Before our eyes, the archive comes alive: this revisited Green Table regains its breath because it questions how images of violence linger in our societies and brings our blind spots to light, in an unsettling loop of time.