Making small things big. Israeli choreographer Emanuel Gat brilliantly transforms this metaphysical principle in his piece Freedom Sonata, premiered in June this year at the Marseille Festival and presented here in its Austrian premiere. His differentiated exploration of individual and social processes leads to the modelling of liveable alternatives to today's communities.

Emanuel Gat, who is completing his third decade as a choreographer with this work, founded his own company, Emanuel Gat Dance, in Tel Aviv in 2004. He has lived and worked in France since 2007. For ‘Freedom Sonata’, whose title already constructs the conflict between freedom and the strict structure of a classical sonata, he has chosen two striking and contradictory pieces of music, which he uses by interweaving them.

The second movement of Ludwig van Beethoven's Last Piano Sonata No. 32 in C minor, Op. 111 has long occupied Gat. In her 2006 recording, pianist Mitsuko Ushida brings out the fascinating rhythmic complexity of this composition, composed in 1821-22. Ragtime and jazz, numerous syncopations and, above all, a danceable character characterise this piece, which was far ahead of its time. The contrast with Kanye West's hip-hop album ‘The Life of Pablo’, released in 2016, is striking. The range of musical and textual attitudes, from self-proclaimed egocentricity to painful insecurity, adds a narrative dimension to the dance piece, in addition to the rhythm used also as counterpoint.

Using his own dynamic lighting concept, the choreographer creates atmospheric states that he places alongside the piece as choreography in its own right.

The work of the eleven dancers in his company models processes in the psyches and the group, and shows how they are subject to constant change in their perpetual quest for a state of equilibrium, whatever that may be. They are constantly rushing to find new authorities with different characteristics, and are also disorientated by the competition between them. At some point, each of them develops a claim to leadership, legitimised by the strength of their own convictions.

But the states provoked are highly unstable, because the individuals who make up these constantly recontextualised groups change and evolve in and through them, and so any balance of forces can only last for a moment. Human history and personality development accelerated and concentrated on a theatre stage.

What's more, we can clearly see how the individual organises his or her self and how society organises itself. The abandonment and transmission of precisely danced, rapid and definitive movement patterns appear as increasingly fast-changing fashions and attitudes, mainly spread and pushed virally. Welcome anchors for individual identification, models of thought and behaviour in tune with the times, and fodder for any group narcissism. Ultimately, this is where politically-motivated societies with potentially toxic power are formed. With its declaration: ‘Everything that is, participates in everything that is. Nothing is on its own’. Gat sums up in his words the dynamic and dialectical relationships that operate at the meta-level within choreography and society.

The original black floor was gradually covered with white dance floors thanks to a collective effort. It eventually becomes a blank sheet of paper, a starting point open to all possibilities for the creation of a society. The piece ends with a beginning. This blank sheet must be filled with life, love, faith and truth. In a parallel process, they gradually change from the white costumes of the beginning, the colour being their only common point, into existential black costumes, once again individually designed. A testimony to an inner transformation towards a personality that is free and responsible for itself.

Individual and group processes, unfolding rapidly and in large numbers, mark the stage action and seem to form a psychological scaffolding around the core that is slowly and iteratively taking shape: a community of free men living fundamental and consensual values. Different personality sketches and individual conceptions of the community are juxtaposed.

No one is left behind. People who doubt themselves or the community's value system are offered a way forward. Empathy, concern, tenderness and understanding are the central tools, acceptance and tolerance the essential goals. The tension between freedom and restriction or order is not resolved. It becomes a constructive force with the agreement of structuring moments. The struggle for agreement on value and belief systems leads to maximum freedom for the individual.

In the middle of the piece, one of the dancers shouts ‘I love me’ to the audience, inviting them to repeat it affirmatively. Because overcoming self-hatred is the root of overcoming hatred of all others. Gat not only describes the cause of sick societies, he also shows the way to a world free from rejection, ostracism, discrimination, racism and war. Pars pro toto. The stage becomes a model, a utopia.

The original foundation on which the edifice of healthy communities can and must be built is the unconditional self-love of each of its members. It is on this foundation that they come together - voluntarily - at the end. Their dance ends abruptly in a tight gathering. With ‘Freedom Sonata’, Emanuel Gat has created a complex, multi-faceted work, finely observed and based on psychology and sociology. Timeless, contemporary and touching.

Rando Hannemann