World premiere and much awaited renewal on stage together: Timulak/Portner by the Royal Swedish Ballet

Emma Portner is one of today's most recognized choreographers since she became the youngest woman ever to choreograph a musical on London's West End. Her dance work has been internationally distributed, and she has also worked with artists such as Emma Watson, Maggie Rogers and Justin Bieber.

»For both me and many of the dancers, this piece is the biggest challenge of our careers so far. For the first two weeks of rehearsals, everyone walked around with big bruises from the sharp edges of the bathtubs. The dancers' arms are also subjected to great stress when they lower themselves into the tubs. After ten weeks of rehearsals, the bathtubs have become one with us and it's strange to walk into a studio without them and the boundaries they create,« says Emma Portner.

»Almost all people have some association with water or bathing. At the beginning of Bathtub Ballet, we treated the bathtubs like regular bathtubs, ones we all love and know, but little by little the view of them is distorted so that at the end of the show you don't think about bathtubs at all. In a way, my ballet is an ode to William Forsythe's One Flat Thing, a choreography that takes place around and on some twenty tables, treated as anything but ordinary kitchen tables.«

Totality in parts received a lot of attention when it was premiered at the Royal Swedish Opera as part of the performance Trinity in 2018. The piece was created by Slovak choreographer Lukáš Timulak in collaboration with set designer Peter Biľak and to music by Oscar-winner Volker Bertelmann (»Hauschka«). Since the world premiere of Totality in Parts, Timulak/Bil'ak has created Darkness – Light – Darkness at the Lyon Opera in 2022, which together with Totality in Parts and Hidden Order (National Theatre in Brno 2018) completes a trilogy that examines the patterns surrounding the visible and invisible worlds.

Timulak/Portner is perfomed on The Royal Swedish Opera's Main Stage from Feb 9 until March 2.

TOTALITY IN PARTS

CHOREOGRAPHY: Lukáš Timulak

MUSIC: Volker Bertelmann (Hauschka)

SCENOGRAPHY: Peter Biľak

COSTUME: Annemarije van Harten

LIGHTING: Tom Visser

BATHTUB BALLET

CHOREOGRAPHY: Emma Portner

MUSIC: Max Richter

MUSIC & SOUND DESIGN: Noah Rubin

SCENOGRAPHY: Emma Portner, Eric Chad

COSTUME: Bregje van Balen

LIGHTING: Eric Chad

STARRING:

The Royal Swedish Ballet