The Belgian choreographer and set designer Stijn Celis has created works for, among others, Ballet Gulbenkian, Bern Ballet, Ballet Mainz, Ballet Wiesbaden, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens and Ballet Nürnberg to name only a few. From 2004 to 2007, he was the artistic director of Bern Ballett, and since 2014 until time of writing has held artistic directorship of the Saarländisches Staatstheater.
Celis was a frequent collaborator with the Cullberg Ballet. Having previously danced with the company himself, he went on to create UBILOZ Vanilla (1997) Vertigo Maze (2002) and Sore Core (2004). In 2008, he choreographed Sonata, which was danced by Daniel Sjökvist, Patricia Vázquez, Thomas Zamolo and Åsa Lundvik Gustafson at its premiere.
Johan Inger, artistic director of the Cullberg Ballet at the time, said this about the collaboration with Stijn Celis:
“Stijn and the Cullberg Ballet have had a continuous collaboration, and it feels exciting to commission a new work from him. Stijn’s movement language is both simple and yet intricate in a way that is idiosyncratic. His work often contains elements of absurdism, and is physically and technically demanding for the performers. Stijn’s choreographic work is unpredictable – unexpected.”
The work shared a program with Crystal Pite’s Matter of a Maker.