26 Jun

20:30

ITA

Leidseplein 26, Amsterdam

Exuberant, brightly colored, and unrestrained. Bilderschlachten is about the power of images. With Dadaist tableaux vivants, choreographer Stephanie Thiersch and composer Brigitta Muntendorf create a powerful, passionate, and poetically stimulating ballet.

Fri, 26 Jun 2026 20:30

ITA, Amsterdam

Sat, 27 Jun 2026 20:30

ITA, Amsterdam

Bilderschlachten

More info & tickets

Exuberant, brightly colored, and unrestrained. Bilderschlachten is about the power of images. With Dadaist tableaux vivants, choreographer Stephanie Thiersch, in collaboration with composer Brigitta Muntendorf (at Holland Festival in 2024 with Melencolia), creates a powerful, passionate, and poetically stimulating ballet.

With 41 musicians from the renowned Residentie Orkest, the Asasello Quartet, and eight dancers, the impressive performance comes to life. They create a danse macabre (a theatrical dance that is both macabre and playful, dealing with mortality, decay, and cultural chaos) that draws from our cultural history, confronts us with an incessant stream of images, and reminds us of the constant overstimulation of modern life.

Thiersch and Muntendorf chose Bernd Alois Zimmermann's Musique pour les soupers du Roi Ubu as the musical counterpart to the piece's visual language. This collage mixes fragments from Bach to Beethoven, from Berlioz to Stockhausen. Composer Brigitta Muntendorf adapted it so that the music reflects the visual references – a kind of 'sound version' of what you see.

Special Program

Introduction: at 7:45 PM in the Pleinfoyer, in English

Meet the Artist: on June 27 at 10:00 PM with Stephanie Thiersch

Composition Bernd Alois Zimmermann (Musique pour les soupers du Roi Ubu, 1968), Brigitta Muntendorf

Co-production Théâtre de Nîmes, Beethovenfest Bonn, Tanzhaus nrw Düsseldorf, Freihandelszone - Ensemblenetzwerk Köln

With support from Kulturstiftung des Bundes, Kunststiftung NRW, Ministerium für Kultur und Wissenschaft des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen, RheinEnergieStiftung Kultur, Kulturamt der Stadt Köln