Rave reviews for Friedemann Vogel's Boléro

Friedemann Vogel performing a modified version of Béjart’s masterpiece Boléro with only eight instead of the usual 36 boys around the iconic red table. Photo ©Roman Novitzky

Friedemann Vogel shows on the ‘‘Boléro” table that the average two kilos of bacon that the Germans have eaten in the Corona Isolation did not end up with him. Every muscle, every gesture with which he draws the melody into the room is sharply modelled. Even if Friedemann Vogel were not surrounded by a single rhythm dancer, Béjart's hit ballet would not lack anything erotic that evening.

 And yet the piece, first performed in 1961, is covered by the dark cloud of AIDS and the very dark corona weather. Friedemann Vogel makes sure that the sun breaks through anyway: the way he dances that evening is untouchable.

Andrea Kachelriess, Stuttgarter Zeitung

The final chord is set by Friedemann Vogel with a slim version of Maurice Béjart's "Boléro": the dancer, alone on the red table in the middle of an entourage melted down to eight men. The ingenuity of the choreographic idea appears all the more evident, the overlapping and intermeshing of Dionysian and Apollonian aspirations. The body of the dancer is pure eros. The shape in which he pours himself, pure logos. Vogel transforms this moment into a spark of the gods - an experience that will hopefully soon illuminate more than 250 heads again.

 Dorian Weickman, Süddeutsche Zeitung

The Stuttgart Ballet shows in a sensational premiere that dance can be pure eroticism. In "RESPONSE I", Friedemann Vogel and the company swept the audience into storms of enthusiasm. After months in lockdown, the ballet and the audience burned for the curtain to finally rise again. All choreographies complied with the rules of distance and hygiene, up to a corona version of Béjart's "Boléro".

Susanne Kaufmann, SWR