Studio Wayne McGregor

EDEN | EDEN
2005

Company
Stuttgart Ballet

Duration
30 minutes

Concept, Direction, Choreography and Set Design
Wayne McGregor

Music
Steve Reich 'Dolly' (from 'Three Tales')

Costume Design
Ursula Bombshell

Lighting Design
Charles Balfour

Video Design
Ravi Deepres

Visual Effects
Luke Unsworth

Originally danced by
Alicia Amatriain, Elisa Carrillo Cabrera, Laura O'Malley, Diana Martinez Morales, Evan McKie, Marijn Rademaker, Stefan Stewart, Friedmann Vogel and Alexander Zaitsev

Premiere date and venue
7 April 2005, Staatstheater, Stuttgart, Germany

Dates

EDEN | EDEN addresses the role of technology in the ethics surrounding the human body.

This work is set to Steve Reich's spoken libretto/musical score for the third act of his filmic opera, Three Tales, devised by Reich and his filmmaker wife, Beryl Korot. Dolly (named for the cloned sheep) pits scientists against one another in a thoughtful debate about the ethics of cloning.

"What does it mean when you clone yourself? If I cloned myself, what are the differences in us? What is it that makes you a human being? Is it biology? Is it skin and bones, muscle? Or is it something much more spiritual, something that makes you different even if someone has the same gene pool as you?" - Wayne McGregor

Since Stuttgart Ballet's premiere, EDEN | EDEN has also been performed by San Francisco Ballet, Atlanta Ballet, Vienna State Ballet, Czech National Ballet and Ballett Dortmund.


Images: © Stuttgart Ballet (of original production).