Dance show review | Flying Bach in the winter garden variety show
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When breakdance meets Bach
09/29/21 | 11:05 a.m.
Bach’s “well-tempered piano” out of the speakers. On the stage the breakdancers of the Flying Steps. The show “Flying Bach” shows that this bizarre mix can go well together. Hendrik Schröder but was not completely convinced.
In front of the entrance to the winter garden are cheerful guys with baseball caps on their heads and clap each other. They say things like: “Ay, you here, stable guy” and “Yo, Diggi, cool”. Women with endless nails show themselves vacation pictures on their smartphones, almost screeching. In addition, older couples in jackets and dresses wait patiently in line.
So some come because of breakdancing, this wild dance style from hip-hop culture, others because of Johann Sebastian Bach. That’s exciting.
On the left of the stage there is a piano, on the right a harpsichord. You play the first twelve fugues of the well-tempered piano, says the pianist over a microphone. He digs through tattered notes a bit and gets going. From the auditorium, a couple of guys in wide T-shirts climb onto the stage and start dancing until you can hear the sneakers squeaking on the stage floor.
And then comes the beat
Ok, that takes a bit of getting used to. A ballerina hovers over the stage and the breakdancers make the craziest movements around her. You stand on your hands, spin upside down, move like a robot. You know the style from countless rap videos or from the pedestrian zone.
Meanwhile, the piano and harpsichord fly happily by. Melody, rhythm and dance go well together, but one wonders: will it stay that way now? Is that breakdancing to Bach? Isn’t there something missing? Then finally a beat sets in and the thing really picks up speed. Luckily.
The show has already been seen in over 50 countries and won the Echo, special classic award. A huge success. But you can’t bring a hall to a boil only with Bach joints.
Cheers for dancers and pianists
The show also has a story and it goes like this: All guys are keen on the ballerina and try hard to impress her with her moves and somersaults. The ballerina, by the way, tender and in a dress, the guys testosterone-filled and in cool streetwear – role models from another millennium.
But the ballerina doesn’t really know who to take or what the guys actually want from her. Somehow like that, but it doesn’t really matter the story. Actually, it’s about staging these incredible skills of the dancers.
And what they can do is really amazing. Such body control, such explosiveness, individually, all together. But at some point the tricks repeat themselves, the show has lengths. Sure, that’s very funny. When do you see and hear someone playing Bach on the piano while the audience screams: “Let’s go! Yeah, Yeah, Diggi you are the greatest” and things like that.
Maybe that’s a bit mean, because the show has excited so many people internationally and it works, but to be completely honest, breakdancing just needs a beat. And no stream. It was still a good evening. Stable, Diggi.
The show can still be seen daily in the Wintergarten Variete until October 5th.
Broadcast: Inforadio, 29.09.2021, 6:55 a.m.
