La Mer

La Mer is a visually rich and emotionally charged multimedia performance about the beauty and fragility of our oceans. This new production is based on Claude Debussy’s grand and iconic La Mer (1905) and his choral work Sirènes. With her 25 dancers, Linning contrasts the naïve-romantic imagination of the sea from Debussy’s time with today’s harsh reality, shaped by rising sea levels and pollution. La Mer invites reflection on our own actions. The result is a compelling hybrid of dance, music, couture, and video art that moves us both physically and intellectually.

The cinematic music of Yannis Kyriakides offers a contemporary counterpart to Debussy’s beloved symphony. His sound compositions are written for the phenomenal soprano Barbara Hannigan and incorporate the most recent hydrophone recordings from the deepest parts of the ocean. Recordings that reveal that, rather than being the quietest place on Earth, it is actually teeming with life and sound. The digital scenography by media artist Heleen Blanken and more than eighty sustainable costumes by Japanese haute couture designer Yuima Nakazato transform the stage into a mysterious, fluid world where beauty and menace go hand in hand.