In The Garden, Nicole Beutler returns to Monte Verità, the Swiss artists' colony where residents at the beginning of the last century walked around naked and made music, danced and gardened to the delight.
Rudolf von Laban (1879-1958) was there, he researched the basic principles of human movement. Gravity, balance and continuous energy characterized his dance - qualities that we see in Beutler's choreography. It starts with a man and a woman on snow-white artificial grass. They are the Adam and Eve of the left panel of Hieronymus Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights, the other source of inspiration for The Garden.
This is followed by a stream of symmetrical sculptures and patterns executed with precision by six performers. When carnal lusts dominate, we have arrived at the central panel of Bosch's triptych. When we hear Einstürzende Neubauten, we reach hell - the last panel - where Bosch painted a score on a pair of bare buttocks. "You'll find me in the garden if you need me," the six sing together.
The beauty is that in Beutler's garden innocence and sin, flowers formed with bodies and fake grass and plants, through-composed dance formations and passionate animal sequences flow smoothly into one another. Gary Shepherd's contemporary beats make us realize there's no turning back. We ate the apple and we will never find a paradise forest again.